General Ecology M 1400-114EKOO-M

Full course description:

1. An introduction to ecology – definition, Basic problems and approaches. The relationships between scientific ecology and practice (conservation biology, biotechnology). Methods of scientific recognition – induction, deduction (examples). Concise history of world and Polish ecology.
2. Organisms and their environment: ecological tolerance, limiting factors, adaptations. Ecological niche. The theory of habitat selection.
3. Evolutionary ecology: natural selection, life strategies and life histories, Optimization. Behavioural ecology. Evolution of sex. Population genetics.
4. Population theory. Demographic analyses, population structure and dynamics. Natality and mortality. Natural regulation of population size.
5. Ecology of inter-specific interactions: competition, predation, parasitism, mutualism.
6. Ecosystem theory. Nutrient cycling. Primary and secondary production, food chains, food webs, ecological efficiency. Regulation at ecosystem level(top-down and bottom-up). Ecological succession.
7. Spatial and temporal variability of environmental correlates on Earth. Productivity of major ecosystems. Recent global biodiversity and its variability in space and time. The role of ecology in understanding selected problems of recent World.