· Purpose: This course is designed to give advanced undergraduates and graduate students entry into the current practices of wildlife ecology and conservation with a focus on forest landscape ecology, processes, and conservation. We will draw heavily from the current primary literature in this field to survey what is evolving and emerging as important theoretical, methodological, and conceptual foundations. This class requires a solid foundation of understanding in Natural Science Disciplines (including Forest Resources, Biology, Zoology, Environmental Studies, and Comparative Psychology), and quantitative approaches to ecology and conservation (especially basic statistical reasoning and GIS).
· Objectives:1) Introduce you to current thought in the field of wildlife and forest conservation; 2) Immerse you in the primary wildlife conservation and forest landscape ecology literature; 3) Increase your comfort with new ecological paradigms including scale, emergence, disturbance, and patch dynamics; 4) Increase your familiarity with analytical methods to quantify and project landscape change; 5) Increase your understanding of local, regional, and global conservation issues; 6) Improve your ability to work in interdisciplinary settings to solve problems, devise conservation strategies, and plan effectively.
· Required Text: None
· Helpful Text Resources (all on reserve at Natural Sciences Library (Allen South, 1st Floor):
Liu and Taylor. (editors) 2002. Integrating landscape
ecology into natural resource management.
Bissonette. (editor) 1997. Wildlife and Landscape Ecology. Springer.
Hunter. (editor) 1999. Maintaining biodiversity in forested ecosystems.
· Teaching Approach: Class meetings are a combination of lecture, discussion, and workgroup activities. The general approach is to use cooperative learning through interaction between students and instructors and especially among students. We assume that all students will read the required scientific papers, lecture notes, and other assigned material BEFORE each class meeting. Failure to do so will not impact the instructors, but will impact fellow students with whom you interact during class. In many cases, the success of a student team will depend on the full participation of each team member. Your commitment to do the required readings, attend and participate in class will enable us to have focused discussions that explore scientific literature and concepts more effectively.
· Lecture outlines and references will be available on Professor Marzluff’s website (accessed from lecture and lab schedules below). You are encouraged to get these before class and embellish them during lecture. Podcasts of the basic messages in each lecture are also available on the website. It is best to listen to these prior to lecture and again in review for tests. Lectures are designed to probe important concepts, not cover all material in the chapters or readings. We will illustrate ideas in lecture with examples and bring current conservation issues to your attention.
·
Readings. The readings are on reserve in the
Natural Sciences Library and available online (from UW home page, go to Library
home page and then to course reserves).
· Class discussions. Small student and faculty groups will discuss each lecture topic. Prior to discussion each student will search the last 2 years of literature and bring an article of relevance to the current topic and of interest to the student to diversify the discussion. Groups will follow instructor-provided suggestions to discuss important topics covered in lecture and will report their insights to the full class.
· Lab sessions. Weekly laboratory sessions will explore scientific and technical approaches to analysis, planning, and management. A combination of individual and team activities will focus on specific techniques and computer applications. The ultimate focus of these activities will be to provide insights into sorts of data and analyses you will need to integrate with lecture concepts for your final project.
· Midterm. There will be a comprehensive midterm exam over the first 2/3 of the course material. It will be a takehome exam that includes short answer and essay questions as well as data interpretation.
· Final Project. The class will culminate with a long-term research plan focused on wildlife issues in the Cedar River Watershed. You will work individually and in teams to synthesize the lecture and lab material and apply the concepts, theories, and quantitative approaches you have learned to understand and quantify wildlife populations and habitat. More details on this year’s project follows.
Emerging Wildlife
Issues in the
The Cedar River Watershed, just East of Seattle provides a
critical ecosystem service to our city—it is a major source of clean
water. It also provides an expansive
(80,000 ha), lowland coniferous forest with minimal disturbance and therefore
high quality wildlife habitat. The City
of
This year’s class project will introduce you to the HCP and
quantitatively assess the implications of thinning for wildlife species and
fire risk. You will be responsible for
assessing tradeoffs in wildlife habitat and fire risk. Teams will determine the
habitat quality of the watershed from the perspective of one species (e.g.,
cougar, Pileated Woodpecker, or Winter Wren). This will involve quantitative assessment of
habitat elements in management units within the watershed (areas that have a
similar management and disturbance history), development of a habitat quality
map of the watershed for their species, and quantitative examination of the landscape
(e.g., patch size) from the perspective of your species. In addition we will take a larger spatial
scale look at
· Grading: Your grade will be determined by your exam scores and discussion projects. Excused absences and prior notification are required to receive make-up exams or delay assignments. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to let us know you will be unable to take an exam or turn in an assignment. Make-up exams may be written or oral, at the instructor's discretion. Assignments turned in late for unexcused reasons will be accepted, but discounted 15% for every week they are late. Total points will be determined in the following way:
o Midterm 100 pts.
o Class Discussion 100 pts
o Final Team Project 200 pts.
o Final Individual Project 100 pts.
o Lab 200 pts. (based on completion of exercises)
§ TOTAL 700 pts.
o Final grades are assigned according to the following scale:
§ A = 3.5 - 4.0 90-95+%
§ B = 2.5 - 3.4 80-89%
§ C = 1.5 - 2.4 70-79%
§ D = 0.7 - 1.4 60-69%
§ F = 0 <60%
o Final Project DUE DATE: March 17 (Monday) by NOON
|
Date |
Lecture Topic |
Literature |
|
1/7 |
Introduction and Objectives (JM) Systems Thinking (DP)
|
Daniels and Walker 2001, Group Assignment for Wed Discussion: |
|
1/9 |
Ecological scale (DP) New paradigms—patches and equilibria (JM) Discussing Disease |
Peterson and Parker 1998 Kilpatrick et al. 2007 Belden and Harris 2007 |
|
1/14 |
Sandy Nickelson, New Issues in a changing world (JM) |
Read about Cedar River HCP and Lambin et al. 2001, Chapin et al. 2000, Harvell et al. 2002 |
|
1/16 |
Parminter 1998, Hunter Chapter 4
|
|
|
1/21 |
Martin Luther King, Jr. |
|
|
1/23 |
Biodiversity, Economics, Ethics (JM) |
Balmford et al. 2002,
Stenseth et al. 2002 |
|
1/28 |
Frelich & Reich 1995 |
|
|
1/30 |
Manging Forests for Multiple Objectives |
Lertzman and Falls 1998 |
|
2/4 |
Opdam & Wiens 2002, Beier
& Noss 1998, Tallmon et al. 2003 |
|
|
2/6 |
Fragmentation, Corridors, Reserves (JM) |
Lomolino 1999, Cabeza and Moilanen 2001, Margules & Pressey 2000 |
|
2/11 |
Hanski and Simberloff 1997
|
|
|
2/13 |
Populations and Metapopulations (JM) |
Harrison and Taylor 1997 |
|
2/18 |
|
|
|
2/20 |
Wiens 1997 |
|
|
2/25 |
|
|
|
2/27 |
Robinson and Wainer 2002 Johnson 2002 |
|
|
3/3 |
Scale, Emergence and Habitat Use (JM) Resource Utilization (JM) |
|
|
3/5 |
Hunter Chapter 12
|
|
|
3/10 |
||
|
3/12 |
Group Presentations of Lab Projects |
Each individual has to prepare a final
project on how managing for their team species affects the other 2 species
and in general how to manage for multiple species in CRW |
Syllabus of Lab Section Topics
|
Wednesday LAB |
|
|
|
Date |
Activity |
Assignment
|
|
1/9 |
What is Habitat and How do you Measure it? |
Morrison 2002, Group rating of species habitat requirements |
|
1/16 |
Introduction to Simulating Landscape Management Combining data from several survey protocols |
Explore web site prior to class; complete class exercise |
|
1/23 |
Simulating Ecological and Restoration Thinning: Benefits and Tradeoffs (costs and fire) |
Class exercise |
|
1/30 |
Virtual management of the CRW Landscape |
Simulate and evaluate thinning and fire risk reduction scenarios for CRW |
|
2/6 |
Habitat Implications of CRW Management—generating a habitat cover map for 3 species of concern (cougar, Pileated Woodpecker, Winter Wren) Reclassifying landcover into species-specific habitat in ARCVIEW Navigating ARCVIEW |
New Users should look at an introduction to arcview like this Before class Class exercise |
|
2/13 |
Quantifying the Bigger View of CRW Biodiversity Conservation Patch Analyst |
Review Web Site Prior to Class, Class exercise |
|
2/20 |
Planning for species of concern |
Each group proposes how to manage CRW for their species |
|
2/27 |
Cougars in the CRW—assessing their movement Animal Movement |
Review Web Site Prior to Class, Class exercise |
|
3/5 |
Animal Movement |
Class exercise |
|
3/12 |
Review Web Site Prior to Class, Class exercise |
|