Systems Ecology: Structure & Function
The ecosystem concept is central to ecology and to environmental science and provides a framework for understanding complex interactions between living things and their chemical and physical environment. Systems are characterized by both structure and function. Structure includes the living and nonliving components that are present in a system. Function includes the flows of energy, cycles of matter and control mechanisms operating in a system. The system that develops in a particular location is determined by interactions between a variety of factors including geology, climate, organisms, exchange, time, chance, disturbance, and human activity. In this course we will explore the ecosystem concept by comparing the structure and function of a variety of ‘natural’ and more human-controlled ecological systems within our bioregion (e.g. forest, wetland, aquatic, agricultural and wastewater treatment systems). The systems concept will also be extended to examine structural and functional patterns at regional and global scales and to consider humans as a dominant agent of biogeochemical change. Students will explore primary literature, will learn field and laboratory methods of observation and analysis, and will develop and implement group research projects. Prerequisites: Biology 120, and Chemistry 101, or 103.
Credit for this course can be counted towards environmental studies and/or biology majors.
Upon completion of this course you will have accomplished the following four goals:
1. Concepts: Become conversant with basic concepts associated with energy flow, material cycles, ecosystem forming factors, and control mechanisms operating at different scales in ecological systems.
2. Field application: Be able to apply these concepts to understand the factors responsible for the development of different local ecosystems.
3. Lab techniques: Gain familiarity with a number of techniques used to quantify structure and to assess the flow of energy, cycling of matter and control mechanisms in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
4. Research skills: Combine these concepts and techniques to ask and to answer important and testable questions for which answers are not already known; apply the scientific method at the ecosystem-level.
Building a solid understanding of the relationship between the structure and function of ecological systems is an iterative process that is best accomplished by alternating between information acquisition and application. Critical components of this cycle include reading, lecture, discussion, field observation, data manipulation and interpetation, and formulating and answering relevant questions. This course is structured to reflect the non-linearity and group-oriented nature of this learning process. Readings and lectures are designed to build your knowledge base. Case studies, field visits, labs and research are intended to develop your skills at applying this knowledge. Components of the learning process are detailed below.
In spite of the dominance of an individualistic model of learning in undergraduate education, there is a wealth of research documenting advantages of collaborative modes of learning (see http://cte.umdnj.edu/active_learning/active_group.cfm for more information and studies). This research indicates that although the amount of factual information that can be transferred into short-term memory is greater in the individual, top-down mode (i.e. straight lecture, individual study), long-term retention and the development of critical thinking skills are maximized in a collaborative mode in which students interact with each other to build and reinforce knowledge. In addition to being a more effective means of building understanding, working within teams of colleagues is also a far more realistic model of how learning and goals are most effectively accomplished in the "real worlds" of research, education, government and business. The team learning model is particularly applicable in the interdisciplinary field of ecosystem science. The majority of system-level studies are accomplished by teams of collaborative researchers. As evidence, note that most peer-reviewed journal articles assigned for this class are multi-authored works, particularly those that involve experiments. Each member of a research team brings a different set of skills and perspectives to bear on the problem at hand and some of the best ideas and analysis emerge as a result of synergistic exchanges among those involved (the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts). The fact is that, although the competitive mode of learning still dominates in education, the vast majority of human endeavors are dependent on effective collaboration skills. Indeed, the human species evolved to work effectively in small groups. Our species is not likely to stick around much longer in anything resembling its current cultural forms unless we figure out how to expand the scales at which we collaborate to match the global scales of energy flows and material cycles that our species now controls.
In order to take advantage of the benefits of collaboration, much of your class and lab work in this course will be accomplished in assigned working groups (fill out working group survey linked here and on course home page). These groups will last for the duration of the semester. My goal in creating these groups will be to pair interests and to maximize distribution of preexisting skills and knowledge among the groups (e.g. chemistry, biology, and geology backgrounds; knowledge of local organism; math, computer and writing skills, etc.). Your responsibility as group members is to help each other master the material, to challenge each other's thinking, to generate new ideas, and to ensure on-time production of assignments. Your grade in this course will be based on individual performance, on group performance, and also on your individual contribution to your group as judged by fellow group members (see evaluation/grading). A classic pitfall in groups is the "free rider" - a member who does not carry his or her weight. Do not be a free rider and do not tolerate a free rider in your group. Communicate with each other so that expectations are commonly understood. Different folks will contribute different skills and knowledge, but all should contribute equitably.
The "case study" approach to learning is modeled on how the scientific process of discovery actually takes place. You are confronted with a situation and you are required to interpret the central issue or problem and to craft an explanation, a solution and/or a recommendation. The goal of the case studies we use in this class is to provide you with the opportunity to develop skills and understanding through creative problem solving. This class employs several varieties of case studies. The site visit and research project components of the course are one type of case. These require you to apply your understanding of ecosystems to interpret the relationship between structure and function within a variety of natural and constructed ecosystems. Parts of each week's classwork will generally be devoted to a case that requires you: to critically evaluate data, to learn and apply skills, and/or to make recommendations regarding a scientific experiment or a contemporary environmental problem from the ecological literature. In order for you and your classmates to make the most of this active approach to learning, you must arrive prepared – you can’t meaningfully interpret relationships if you don’t have a good basic understanding of the processes involved.
During the semester we will complete 4 site visits and will also explore terrestrial and aquatic methods of ecosystem analysis in the lab. Other lab periods will be devoted to skills for analyzing, interpreting and presenting data. During the second half of the semester, most lab periods will be dedicated to work on research projects. Because of season and the need to rapidly get you up to speed on laboratory skills necessary for your research, field and lab work tend to be particularly demanding during the first half of the semester.
During the class that precedes each site visit working groups should assign each member to a temporary "expert group". Members of each expert group focus on evaluating the role that one set of factors – geology & soils, vegetation, animals & human-use – has played in shaping the development of the site. I expect you to prepare in advance by reviewing relevant materials (see below). Once we arrive at the site, the expert groups will spend 20 – 30 minutes investigating, interpreting and discussing the significance of the site with respect to their set of factors. I have constructed a set of “Site Questions” that should guide you in analyzing each site. The entire crew will then reassemble and people from each expert group will summarize the findings and interpretation of that group. Each working group is responsible for incorporating all of the relevant information learned about the site into a site report. The homepage of the ENVS316 website contains comprehensive instructions for “How to write a site report”.
Prepare both your body and mind for the field. It is very unlikely that we will cancel site visits for weather (in eleven years, I don't recall that we ever have!). Dress appropriately for field and lab work. All of the sites we visit contain poison ivy and various thorny plants. Long pants and closed-toed shoes are required for both field and lab work. Ticks and mosquitoes are distinct possibilities. On some trips we may wade or otherwise get wet. One site contains a very steep and sometimes slippery slope. As the semester progresses, it will get colder. Dress in layers. Be punctual – we have limited hours and will leave on time with or without you. Prepare intellectually BEFORE we go out into the field. Decide the class period before who will be a member of each expert group. Do the assigned background reading for the particular site visit. Focus on readings most relevant to your expert group. Locate the site on a map, check out what the soil survey has to say about the site, find out what you can about vegetation and land use history. Preparation will maximize your ability to assimilate on-site information, and will result in stronger site reports. Bring the Site Questions, geological maps, field guides and a sturdy notebook for recording during site visits.
The two lab sessions will focus on introducing you to a range of tools and methods available for analyzing primary productivity, respiration, nutrient dynamics and soil processes in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The primary objective of lab exercises is to expose you to a set of techniques that will be useful for developing research projects. Short data analysis exercises will be due after each lab. Brewer et al. and a variety of books placed on reserve in the Science Library cover additional methods, some of which may be possible with our equipment.
Upon request, I will grant individuals and groups permission to borrow specific field equipment and to perform specific laboratory analyses in my research lab. The rules are as follows: 1) ask me first before borrowing or using lab or field equipment, 2) follow all rules posted in my research lab, 3) friends who are not in ENVS316 are not to be admitted to the lab, 4) clean up all equipment and work surfaces completely and return equipment to its proper location (do not assume that anyone will be cleaning up after you without prior arrangement), 5) notify me if equipment breaks or does not appear to be working properly so that I can have it fixed or replaced. 6) the ion chromatograph, is expensive, delicate, complex and temperamental and therefore cannot be run without my supervision or approval, 7) activities that raise dust should be conducted outside or in the storage room in the NE corner of the building, 8) the door to my lab should remain locked at all times. Failure to abide by any of these rules will be considered a violation of the honor code.
Scientific knowledge is generated through research, a practice that entails asking useful and testable questions for which answers are not already known and then designing, conducting and analyzing experiments that answer these questions. You can’t learn the practice of ecosystem science without engaging in research any more than you can learn how to ride a bicycle without getting on a bicycle and taking your feet off the ground. The objective of the research project in this course is to provide you with hands-on experience in the practice of ecosystem-level science. Towards this end, your project will involve all aspects of the scientific process. You will; identify a topic of interest from a list of research areas, review relevant literature, propose research questions and hypotheses for which answers are not already know, design an experiment, and collect and analyze data to answer your question/test your hypothesis. Finally, you will describe your findings in the format of a scientific poster and scientific paper.
Over the course of the semester you will produce three main products related to your research project: a project proposal with literature review, a final poster presentation of findings to the class, and a final project report. Instructions and due dates are described under Project Assignments. The Project Resources link provides descriptions of research project opportunities and links to prior studies in these areas. In addition to producing these three products, you will review proposals produced by other groups and you will provide interim progress reports to the class. All members of your group should play substantive and defined roles in the proposal, the execution of the project, the progress reports, the final presentation and the final report.
Infrequent exams tend to encourage short-term rather than long-term information and skill acquisition. Your knowledge will therefore be assessed with regular quizzes (see schedule for timing). These will be composed largely of multiple choice questions, will be designed to take about 20 minutes, and will be taken on the web using Blackboard. You will take some quizzes and/or parts of quizzes alone and others in randomly assigned pairs. Content will be cumulative, and material that multiple class members have difficulty answering correctly on one quiz will almost certainly appear on subsequent quizzes. Once you sit down at a terminal to take the quiz, you must place all notes and other materials out of sight. All quizzes count equally regardless of the number of questions. You will receive a score of zero for any quiz that you miss. Since there will often be a gap in the time that different class members take a quiz, it is critical that you not discuss any aspect of the quiz with anyone after you complete it (do not even discuss whether you have taken it or not – see Honor Code section on quizzes). There is no final exam in this class.
Is it fair to have students take quizzes in pairs? The answer depends on your perspective on education. The competitive perspective is premised on the idea that success is a relative phenomenon; an individual’s success is contingent on others being less successful. From this perspective taking quizzes in pairs is unfair in the sense that "free riders" experience unjustified benefits when they are paired with those who are genuinely prepared. However, from a collaborative perspective, you have little to lose by taking the quiz with a partner; even if you are better prepared, it is likely that your partner will contribute to improving your combined score. Assuming that a well-prepared student is also good at communicating his or her understanding to others (a critical skill to develop), a student who is always well prepared will always do well, regardless of assigned partner. A student who is poorly prepared will sometimes get lucky, but will sometimes get paired with another poorly prepared student. On balance (and from a statistical perspective), a student’s cumulative average over the entire semester is likely provide a good measure of that student’s individual knowledge of the material. You will periodically find that you disagree with your partner on the answer to a question. Consider this an ideal learning/teaching opportunity. Don't assume that you are necessarily correct; don't assume that you are necessarily wrong. Carefully explore the logic of your understanding with your assigned partner.
The jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker was fond of advising aspiring musicians to, "learn your instrument, learn the music, and then forget both". The process of learning to understand ecosystems bears strong similarities to learning to play jazz. Ultimately, I want you to begin to develop an intuition for understanding ecological systems. You can’t do this without first becoming familiar with certain facts, definitions and vocabulary ("learning the instrument") and mastering key concepts associated with the discipline ("learning the music"). My objective is to assign you a grade based on how well you progress in all three of these aspects of learning. To continue the analogy, regular quizzes are designed to assess how well you master the instrument and the music. The case studies, site visits and research projects will focus equally on instrument, music and creative application. In music, and in most professional situations, an individual’s performance can potentially be augmented by the collective performance of the ensemble. Grades in this course will not be on a curve; although it has not happened yet, nothing precludes all class members from receiving As.
21% Quizzes, 21% Field/lab site reports, 21% Research project, 21% Class participation and small assignments, 16%* Group participation
*Your group participation score will be calculated as follows: at the end of the semester, each member of a working group of size=n will be given a maximum of [(n-1)*10] points to anonymously distribute among fellow group members based on each member's contribution. For instance, if you are in a group of 3 you will have a total of 20 point to distribute. If you perceive that your fellow group members all contributed very effectively and equally to the group, then you will give each of the other two a score of 10 points. You do not need to assign all of the points (e.g. if two of your fellow group members exhibited free rider tendencies you might assign scores of 6 and 6). If you receive an average score of 10 from your group-mates, then you will receive full credit for group participation (100% of 16%). If your average is greater than 10, then you will receive extra credit proportional to your score. If your score is less than 10 you will receive a proportional reduction in your grade up to 16%. Since this class is dependent on group participation, you will not pass the course if your average score is 5 or less, regardless of how you do on the other components. I will know what scores each of you assign. Your fellow group members will not know what individual group members contributed to their total score. I reserve the right to overrule and adjust an individual’s group grade in the unlikely event that I feel someone is being treated unfairly (I have never had to do this).
Mechanism: All assignments should be turned in electronically on Blackboard; no paper assignments will be accepted. To do this, go to the Blackboard website, click on the “Assignments” button, click on the appropriate assignment (e.g. "Feedback&Causality"), click the “Browse” button to find your file, then click on the “Submit” button. I have set Blackboard up so that you can submit multiple versions if you make a mistake, but you will need to let me know if you do.
Format: All written assignments should be sent in Microsoft Word. I prefer Times New Roman with 0.8" margins all around. Single space all text. I will use the "track changes" feature of word to insert my comments into your assignments and will return them to you electronically. Certain assignments, such as the feedback assignment and your research project poster should be submitted in Microsoft Powerpoint format. In the past I have had problems with students turning in virus infected files. The college offers free virus protection software to all students who are on the college computer network -- please download, update and use this!
File naming convention: Use the following names for your files: Feedback loop diagram assignment, "FLLastName" (e.g. FLDoe); Site reports and lab assignments, "LastNamesOfGroupMembers&SiteName" with first author first (e.g. PetersenJonesShermanJonesFarm.doc, PetersenJonesShermanChancCreek.doc,PetersenJonesShermanAquaticMethods.doc); Naming conventions for research project assignments are described in the document describing these assignments.
I'm generally pretty good about responding to email within a day or so. If you email a question of general interest, I will likely send my response to the entire class list. I sometimes send important late-breaking information about class and field trips by email, so I expect you to read your email regularly. Feel free to make an appointment to see me, or to stop by during my office hours.
Each year I try a variety of new teaching approaches and indroduce new materials in this course. Please give me the benefit of the doubt – some will work well, some may not and I will adjust accordingly. I encourage feedback. Positive comments on what is working well are as useful as more critical comments!
Your ability to perform well on timed assessments is not an important skill for anything you do outside of being a student. I have therefore intentionally designed this course so that there are no timed assessments. If you have a disability that requires other accommodations please start by contacting Jane Boomer, Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities (jane.boomer@oberlin.edu). Do this as early in the semester as possible. Collectively, we can then work out a plan to meet your learning needs. All discussions will remain confidential.
Field work in this course requires that you are comfortably able to hike over steep and potentially slippery terrain. If you have a physical condition that would interfere with this or if you do not know how to swim, you MUST describe your situation to me at the start of the semester so that appropriate accommodations can be made in advance.
The honor code applies to the quizzes as follows: 1) You may not gain access to the questions on a quiz beforehand. 2) Students who have taken the quiz may not discuss any aspect of the quiz with students who have not yet taken the quiz (not even to suggest that it was easy or hard). 3) Quizzes are always closed-book and closed-notes - you should have nothing but the quiz open and visible on the screen when you take a quiz. 4) Do not print a copy of a quiz. 5) Complete the quiz from start to finish in one sitting without breaks or distractions. Do not try to log on to a given quiz more than once. 6) Do not log on to a quiz in another student’s name (by doing so you will invalidate the other student’s ability to take the quiz). 7) You are generally assigned to take quizzes with and/or in the presence of a partner. You and your partner are bound by the honor code to ensure that you are both playing by these rules and stay together until both have comleted both individual and group components. 8) The Field & Lab section of this syllabus describes additioanal honor code conditions. 9) If you become aware of others in the class who are giving or receiving unauthorized aid on a quiz then you are obliged to report them to the honor board. Make this work for us; respect your classmates by respecting Oberlin’s honor code!
Honor code and written work:
Much of your assigned writing will be completed in groups. So I EXPECT you to share ideas with your group members. I also encourage you to share ideas and information among working groups. One member of each group, the “lead author”, will take principle responsibility for each site report (see instructions for site reports linked under the Field & Lab link on the course home page). The honor code applies in the sense that the lead author should, in fact, take principle responsibility for producing a product that represents the integrated work of the entire group. I hold the lead author responsible for the quality of the writing and the organization of the report. All members’ names should appear on each report and this signifies that all members have made substantive contributions to the content of the report. If a member has not contributed, this member’s name should not appear on the report and this person will be given zero credit for the report; including a free rider’s name as an author violates the honor code.