Landscape Ecology
Fall 2001

Course Description

Instructor: Dr. Colleen A. Hatfield

134 ENR Building
732-932-1577 (Voice)
email: chatfld@crssa.rutgers.edu

Office Hours: By appointment

Text: Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice - Pattern and Process

Turner, Gardner and O'Neill 2001. Springer Verlag

Level: Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students.

Prerequisites: A course in general ecology and a statistics course.

OBJECTIVE: Landscape ecology emphasizes spatial patterning - its causes, development and relevance to ecological systems. Students will become familiar with the conceptual and theoretical framework of Landscape Ecology as well as the quantitative and modeling tools that facilitate our understanding of spatial processes. Readings from the contemporary literature will introduce students to the current approaches in this field and encourage critical thinking and leadership in the process.

COURSE FORMAT: Course topics are scheduled for each week. Class meetings will be devoted to some formal lecture, discussions of assigned readings from the primary literature and/or lab exercises.

READING ASSIGNMENTS: Readings from the primary literature will be assigned and copies are located in ENR 145. Each student is expected to read the assigned papers and for some papers there will be a required one-page synopsis of the paper (to be turned in).

DISCUSSION SESSIONS: One of the goals in this course is to develop critical thinking skills. In that vane, we will devote time to discussing papers from the primary literature. Each discussion will be led by a student and the responsibility will rotate among all students in the class. As discussion leader, the student should be familiar with background materials, provide an evaluation of the significant contributions of the paper, and raise questions and issues for discussion with the group. An additional objective of the discussion leader will be to stimulate active involvement of all the class members and part of the leaders evaluation will be based on this.

EXAMS: A midterm and final exam will be administered during the course. These will primarily consist of essays.

EXERCISES: There will be several exercises during the course of the semester that give students hands-on familiarity with some of the quantitative concepts covered in class.

PAPER ASSIGNMENT:

We will be preparing a series of essays that will be linked by a central theme. The theme will be determined by class consensus and the focus will be the contribution that landscape ecology has and can make to various fields of ecological study. The essays will be posted on the course web page under the chosen theme and linked to the Web. Students will select the area they wish to focus on and will prepare a succinct essay that provides the background, current state of our understanding and how landscape ecology principles are relevant. The essays will go through the peer review process with fellow classmates. Students will turn in a hard copy as well as a web-ready version along with appropriate references and web links.

PRESENTATIONS: Each student will give a presentation on their selected topic and demonstrate any cool and innovative resources they might have found along the way.

GRADING:
Midterm 20%
Final 20%
Class participation
and leading discussions 20%
Exercises 15%
Paper 20%
Oral Presentation 5%

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Landscape Ecology Course