Functional ecology is an emerging field in ecology that tries to functionally describe ecological patterns and observations to get a deeper insight and understanding of ecosystem dynamics and species phenotypes and evolution. Functional description further helps improve ecological models and prediction capabilities for future scenarios. In this course we cover some fundamental ecosystem dynamics, like interspecific interactions, trophic cascades and nutrient cycling. You will learn more about functional traits, phenotypic plasticity and ecological stoichiometry. Since it is essential to carefully design field and laboratory experiments, especially in this field, we will also cover experimental design and statistical approaches, which are tightly connected to each other. Therefore, parts of the lecture will be a hands-on R and statistics workshop where we will provide and exercise examples how to plan experiments according to the asked questions and required statistics to answer them.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 1:
The FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 1 course comprises the lecture and exercises with R, as well as a seminar where the participants will become acquainted with a chosen publication, which they will have to analyse for its scientific quality (i.e., experimental design, chosen statistics, etc.) and present their findings and thoughts to the other participants.
At the end of the semester, you will have to attempt a written exam for the FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 1. Additionally, all participants will also be able to listen and challenge the presenters of the FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 2 course, see below.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 2:
Those that participate in the FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 2 course will have the opportunity to directly apply the learned skills from FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 1 in a real experiment. Parallel registration and attendance of the FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 1 course is required. The FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY 2 course comprises a four-week block for conducting own experiments. Those experiments will be planned, executed and analysed by the participants.
You will present your approach and results to all participants of both courses and defend your approach. Additionally, a short protocol of your findings must be handed in after the practical class. |
