Marine Biology/EEB open house on Friday

Hey guys,

The Brown Marine Biology DUG is hosting an open house for potential concentrators and anyone interested in marine science at Brown. Come talk to current concentrators, graduate students and professors and eat free Meeting Street cookies in the Walter Hall conference room (where ecology discussion sections are held) from 1-3pm on Friday, April 8. Hope to see you there!

Whales and forams and everything in between.

Ecology field trip

Everyone should have heard from your TAs about this, but the field trip has been postponed to Thursday morning. We will meet at the same time and place - 7.45 am at the corner of Brown and Olive Streets.

Bring pencils and notebooks and come dressed appropriately - it can be windy on the shore and in the forest, there will be some navigating through brambles and up slopes (see below for some pictures on what it can be like).

Scientists at Work- Turtles and TEDs

Hey guys,
I found this entry written by a postdoc at the University of Washington. Check it out - it has a great video of a TED in action!

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/how-to-not-catch-a-sea-turtle/?ref=science




-Asya

Questions to consider while reviewing for Exam #2

What is the relationship between r and λ? How is λ related to the stable age distribution (SAD)? What determines SAD / what would make a population's SAD change?

For the metapopulation model, what does it mean when df/dt=0? What symbol is used to represent the fraction of patches occupied at this state?

What are the differences between interference and exploitative competition? Describe and give examples. Can these have the same effects on population growth of the species involved?

Explain how the logistic growth equation can be thought of as modelling competitive interactions. Is this incorporated in the Lotka-Volterra models anywhere? How? Would it ever make sense to NOT incorporate this?

In the simple LV competition model, we use the notation that β is the effect of species 1 on the growth of species 2. Would β change if there were more of species 1? Would β change if there were more of species 2?

To answer the previous questions - no, not in this model. β is per capita effects. But would it ever make sense to have β change? Give an example that illustrates what β represents.

Exam 2 Review Sessions

Review sessions for the second exam will be held:

Sunday, 20 March, 7-9pm in the Walter Hall conference room
Monday, 21 March, 4-6pm in Salomon 202

Come prepared with questions!

Homework 2

Homework 2 is now available through MyCourses. It is due next Wednesday at 5pm.

You will need the Populus software to complete it. Populus can be downloaded here: http://www.cbs.umn.edu/populus.

Also, I changed my office hours to an hour earlier on Wednesdays.

Questions to consider while studying for Exam #1

Note: this is not by any means a comprehensive study guide. Answers will not be posted. These questions are meant to put you in the mindset of the kinds of topics you will need to think and write about on Thursday.

The best way to study is to get together with a study partner, and ask each other questions!

***

What are the force equations? What kind of forces does a stationary organism experience in a moving fluid? Are these forces constant? Do they vary with height/distance from the organism? How? What are some examples of organisms experiencing forces in fluids that we have discussed in class or in section? For instance, take a look at the Trussell paper. What are consequences of organisms living in high-flow areas?

Why is scaling important? What is allometric scaling? Give an example of allometric scaling from the literature. What is isometric scaling? Give an example from the literature. What is Kleiber's Law and how does it relate to scaling? Under what circumstances might this ratio change? What are the other variables that scale with body mass? (ex: population density, latitude, home range). Give a quantitative description of the Energy Equivalence Rule. This may help: http://repository.unm.edu/bitstream/handle/1928/6927/Damuth.pdf?sequence=1

Continuing with the theme of scaling, why might we look at ecological processes at different spatial scales? What papers have we discussed that relate to spatial scales? (hint: Garcia et al, and White et al.) How do the following differ from one another: GSDR, LSDR, and CCSR?

From Gotelli:
What are the differences between stepwise (discrete) and a continuous population growth models? What are the assumptions of each model? How do these vary from assumptions of logistic models of population growth? Are these models realistic? For what organisms would you use these models? What is r? What is lamda? What does it mean if lamda >1? What does this tell you about the value of r? What is the doubling time? What is stochasticity? How can it be quantified? Under what circumstances (values of r and variance) will a population crash? Why does demographic stochasticity have a disproportionately greater effect on small populations?

What are the differences in optimal foraging between generalists and specialists? Give examples of each. Draw an optimal foraging curve and label key points: travel time, optimum travel time and energy gain (how does this relate to the marginal value theorem?), and axes. What are assumptions of the Optimum Foraging model? What are examples of optimum foraging from the literature (at least 2)? What is prey switching? Why would it occur? Give an example from the literature (hint: bluegill sunfish & daphnia).

What are two main life history strategies? Give examples of semelparous and iteroparous organisms. Why do we see episodically iteroparous trees? How does masting relate to seed dispersal? Relate to Hollbrook & Loiselle. How might seed dispersal strategies differ between k- and r-selected species? Give an example of each.

vocab:
stochasticity
Bergman's rule
specialist
generalist
semelparous
iteroparous
clonal
colonial
modular
concordance
fragmentation
PRC
gamete
colonization
n-dimensional hypervolume