00248 - Ecology

Learning outcomes

To provide the basic concepts for recognizing and measuring processes
which govern the functioning of populations and communities of living
beings and ecosystems.

Course contents

a) The cultural roots of ecology, its contents and relationships with
other scientific disciplines. Ecological methodology: experimental
design and mathematical models. The physical environment: water, soil,
carbon, oxygen, nutrients, temperature, light. b) Demography:
lifestyles; populations: their dynamics and regulation, life-table
(survival and fertility). c) Community ecology: interspecific
relationships; predation, herbivory, parassitism, mutualism; competion:
the Lotka-Volterra model of competition, competitive mechanisms;
predation: limiting resourse, prey-predator interaction model. d)
Trophic ecology: ecosystems as thermodynamic entities, primary
production: its measuring and distribution; energy flowing trough
trophic webs and ecological efficiency; the detritus chain and
decomposition; biogeochemical cycles.
e) Biodiversity: community structure and diversity measures;
latitudinal species diversity; diversity and niche-packing: Diversity
maintenance: equilibrium theories of competion restraint, the cropping
principle, the intermediate disturbance hypothesis.

Readings/Bibliography

A) Elements of Ecology,2006. TM Smith, RL Smith Pearson Education International.

B) Ecologia - dagli organismi agli ecosistemi - 2004 - Chelazzi G., Provini A., Santini G. Casa Editrice Ambrosiana

Teaching methods

Lessons, seminars and discussion groups

Assessment methods

1 mid term written test and final oral examination

Office hours

See the website of Laura Airoldi