Introduction to Ecology

This course studies the interactions between organisms and their environment at the organismal, population, community, and ecosystem levels. Topics considered include energy flow, nutrient cycling, organismal ecology, population growth, regulation and dynamics, species interactions, community structure, ecological succession, biodiversity, conservation, and evolutionary processes. Lab activities support lecture material allowing students to apply ecological concepts and theories by testing ecological hypotheses. Students gain local natural history knowledge and employ various quantitative methods to collect, analyze, and interpret ecological data from field studies and experiments.