Ecology on Campus

PREFACE: TEACHING AND LEARNING ECOLOGY IN A CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT

1. DESCRIBING A POPULATION

Exercise A: Seed weights in legumes

Exercise B: Needle length in conifers

2. ALLOMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS

Exercise A: Modeling size and shape relations

Exercise B: Heat exchange in beetles

Exercise C: Size and shape of trees

3. ESTIMATING POPULATION SIZE

Exercise A: Mark-recapture simulation

Exercise B: Mark-recapture estimate of a student population

Exercise C: Mark-recapture estimate of a mealworm population

4. POPULATION GROWTH

Exercise A: Calculating r from a published data set

Exercise B: Comparing exponential and logistic growth

Exercise C: Population growth of yeasts

5. DEMOGRAPHY

Exercise A: Demography simulation

Exercise B: Developing a life table from the alumni newsletter

Exercise C: Demography of campus trees

6. POPULATION GENETICS

Exercise A: Population genetics simulation

Exercise B: Hardy Weinberg equilibrium in a fruit fly culture

7. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS

Exercise A: Dispersion of plants in a lawn community

Exercise B: Dispersion of herbivores on plant resource units

Exercise C: Dispersion of isopods in an artificial habitat

8. THE NICHE

Exercise A: Feeding niches in the community aquarium

Exercise B: Niches of birds at a feeding station

Exercise C: Plant niches on a disturbance gradient

9. THE CONCEPT OF THE COMMUNITY

Exercise A: Geographical distributions of tree species

Exercise B: Direction of exposure and plant communities

Exercise C: Microbial communities on a salt concentration gradient

10. COMPETITION

Exercise A: Demonstrating allelopathy

Exercise B: Competition within and between species

Exercise C: Competition problems

11. PREDATION AND PARASITISM

Exercise A: Predator/prey simulation

Exercise B: Predation by Daphnia on Euglena

Exercise C: Simulating functional responses of a predator

12. MUTUALISM

Exercise A: Effects of Rhizobium on legumes

Exercise B: Microbial symbionts in termite gut and lichen thallus

Exercise C: Flower/pollinator mutualism

13. BIODIVERSITY

Exercise A: Measuring biodiversity of campus birds

Exercise B: Measuring invertebrate biodiversity

Exercise C: Measuring biodiversity in sweep net samples

14. ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION

Exercise A: Succession in hay infusions

Exercise B: Comparing r-selection and K-selection in trees

15. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL ATTRIBUTES OF SOILS

Exercise A: Physical properties of soils

Exercise B: Soil pH in two microhabitats

Exercise C: Nutrient capture by soils

16. AQUATIC SYSTEMS

Exercise A: Dissolved oxygen and temperature

Exercise B: Sediment load and water clarity

Exercise C: LD₅₀ determination for a pesticide

17. ENERGY FLOW

Exercise A: Productivity of plankton

Exercise B: Pyramid of biomass for plankton

Exercise C: Estimating ecological efficiency of leaf miners

18. ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY

Exercise A: Biogeography simulation game

Exercise B: Species-area relationship for bird communities

APPENDIX 1: The variance

APPENDIX 2: Critical values for the t-test

APPENDIX 3: Correlation and regression

APPENDIX 4: Critical values for the Mann-Whitney U test

APPENDIX 5: Critical values for the Chi-square test

APPENDIX 6: A table of random numbers

APPENDIX 7: Writing a laboratory report

Comprehensive glossary of ecological terms