PREFACE: TEACHING AND LEARNING ECOLOGY IN A CAMPUS ENVIRONMENT
1. DESCRIBING A POPULATION
Exercise A: Seed weights in legumes
Exercise B: Needle length in conifers
2. ALLOMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS
Exercise A: Modeling size and shape relations
Exercise B: Heat exchange in beetles
Exercise C: Size and shape of trees
3. ESTIMATING POPULATION SIZE
Exercise A: Mark-recapture simulation
Exercise B: Mark-recapture estimate of a student population
Exercise C: Mark-recapture estimate of a mealworm population
4. POPULATION GROWTH
Exercise A: Calculating r from a published data set
Exercise B: Comparing exponential and logistic growth
Exercise C: Population growth of yeasts
5. DEMOGRAPHY
Exercise A: Demography simulation
Exercise B: Developing a life table from the alumni newsletter
Exercise C: Demography of campus trees
6. POPULATION GENETICS
Exercise A: Population genetics simulation
Exercise B: Hardy Weinberg equilibrium in a fruit fly culture
7. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS
Exercise A: Dispersion of plants in a lawn community
Exercise B: Dispersion of herbivores on plant resource units
Exercise C: Dispersion of isopods in an artificial habitat
8. THE NICHE
Exercise A: Feeding niches in the community aquarium
Exercise B: Niches of birds at a feeding station
Exercise C: Plant niches on a disturbance gradient
9. THE CONCEPT OF THE COMMUNITY
Exercise A: Geographical distributions of tree species
Exercise B: Direction of exposure and plant communities
Exercise C: Microbial communities on a salt concentration gradient
10. COMPETITION
Exercise A: Demonstrating allelopathy
Exercise B: Competition within and between species
Exercise C: Competition problems
11. PREDATION AND PARASITISM
Exercise A: Predator/prey simulation
Exercise B: Predation by Daphnia on Euglena
Exercise C: Simulating functional responses of a predator
12. MUTUALISM
Exercise A: Effects of Rhizobium on legumes
Exercise B: Microbial symbionts in termite gut and lichen thallus
Exercise C: Flower/pollinator mutualism
13. BIODIVERSITY
Exercise A: Measuring biodiversity of campus birds
Exercise B: Measuring invertebrate biodiversity
Exercise C: Measuring biodiversity in sweep net samples
14. ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION
Exercise A: Succession in hay infusions
Exercise B: Comparing r-selection and K-selection in trees
15. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL ATTRIBUTES OF SOILS
Exercise A: Physical properties of soils
Exercise B: Soil pH in two microhabitats
Exercise C: Nutrient capture by soils
16. AQUATIC SYSTEMS
Exercise A: Dissolved oxygen and temperature
Exercise B: Sediment load and water clarity
Exercise C: LD50 determination for a pesticide
17. ENERGY FLOW
Exercise A: Productivity of plankton
Exercise B: Pyramid of biomass for plankton
Exercise C: Estimating ecological efficiency of leaf miners
18. ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY
Exercise A: Biogeography simulation game
Exercise B: Species-area relationship for bird communities
APPENDIX 1: The variance
APPENDIX 2: Critical values for the t-test
APPENDIX 3: Correlation and regression
APPENDIX 4: Critical values for the Mann-Whitney U test
APPENDIX 5: Critical values for the Chi-square test
APPENDIX 6: A table of random numbers
APPENDIX 7: Writing a laboratory report
Comprehensive glossary of ecological terms
