Syllabus
The course offers an introduction to the basics of population ecology:
- various models of one species population dynamics (without/with age structure, overlapping/nonoverlapping generations),- interactions between species (predator-prey, competition, resource-consumer), - spread of infectious diseases (interactions between numbers of susceptible, infected and recovered individuals),- dynamics of metapopulations (several populations of the same species connected by migration),- effects of landscape connectivity of species survival,- island biogeography and its applications in species protection,- species-area, species-abundance relationships and their use in design of nature reserves.
The course will be conducted partially face-to-face (consultations - see below) and partially on line in the Google Classroom environment (Classroom further on), which is very user-friendly. The Classroom environment will serve as a means of communication between you and me and as a depository of all you will need for attending the course. The course will include video lectures, which will be normal lectures, just in the form of a film in .mp4, instead of my personal presentation in the classroom, which you are used for. Each series of several video lectures will then be followed by one interactive lecture in the familiar videoconferencing program Google Meet (no need to install anything), taking place at the scheduled time of the course (Monday 15:40-17:10, weeks will be announced during the introductory lecture), where you will have an opportunity to ask anything about the matter presented in the video lectures, or discuss anything on this topic. In parallel, several consultations will be organized taking place in B12 at the scheduled time of the course (Monday 15:40-17:10, weeks will be announced during the introductory lecture). Files containing all these video lectures or interactive lectures will be deposited in the Classroom and available to those enrolled in the Classroom any time. Consultations will not be recorded. The exam will be also online and will take place on Monday, May 6, at 15:40-16:10. In case of necessity, additional terms will be announced.
The introductory lecture will take place in Google Meet on February 26 (see below for details). It will focus on the content of the course and especially the introduction to working in the Classroom environment, so that you feel comfortable in it and know where to look for what. During the lecture you will be able to ask for what you do not understand or what you are interested in about the course. You can participate in it either right at the time of the event in B12, or even after that, because it will be recorded and after its completion it will be immediately uploaded to the Classroom environment and deposited there, so that you will be able to watch it any time. I strongly recommend attending this lecture either at the time of the event or to see it as soon as possible after, so that you know what awaits you in the coming weeks and how to use the Classroom environment.
For the Classroom environment to work correctly, it is absolutely necessary that you are registered in the student information system (SIS) with an email address in the domain @natur.cuni.cz. This is the email address you have received when you were enrolling the Charles University. Each of you has one. The enrollment to the Classroom environment is by invitation only and only people with an email address with the domain @natur.cuni.cz in SIS will receive an invitation. CAUTION: only people enrolled to the classroom environment are allowed to attend the course and stand for the exam! Please make sure that you change your address in SIS by February 12. Ask in the Study Department for help, if you run into problems with changing this email address.
TIMING: On February 13-14, those whose address in SIS will be in the domain @natur.cuni.cz, will receive an invitation to the Classroom environment. Accept this invitation and click on the link provided to enter this environment. It is absolutely necessary to accept the invitation, otherwise you cannot work in this environment. Before the first lecture, you can look into the Classroom environment (after accepting the invitation) to see what awaits you, but I recommend that you do not experiment here, so that you do not spoil the whole user-friendly environment. Wait for the instructions in the introductory lecture.
FOR LATE COMERS: Students are allowed to subscribe to the course even after February 19. Because there might be these late comers and/or for those whose email address will not be in the domain @natur.cuni.cz by February 12, I will send the invitation to the Classroom environment to all students with an email address in the domain @natur.cuni.cz on February 27-28 once more. Accepting this invitation will be your last possibility to enroll the Classroom environment and to attend the course. No later enrollments will be accepted. If you already will be enrolled into the Classroom by that time, just ignore this invitation.
INTRODUCTORY LESSON (see above) will take place on Monday, February 26, at 15:40-17:10, in B12.
TO GET TO THE INTERACTIVE LECTURES, CLICK AT THIS ADDRESS: https://meet.google.com/xft-bfnw-wpd
The interactive lectures will be recorded and then deposited in the Classroom environment, and therefore available to all students with an access to Classroom anytime.
Annotation
Population Ecology and Species Protection is an up-to-date course covering the most important aspects of population ecology. It discusses field and laboratory data to illustrate the fundamental laws of population ecology, explores single-species population growth and self-limitation, metapopulations, and a broad range of interspecific interactions including parasite-host, predator-prey, and plant-herbivore.
The course keeps the mathematics as simple as possible, using a careful step-by-step approach and including graphs and other visual aids to help understanding.