Community ecology 1400-226EE

The entire course lasts 12 days. The course takes place in the north-eastern part of Poland on the basis of the field stations of Department of Biology located in Urwitałt and Pilchy. During the course the students implement in 3-6 research teams on themes of personal development activities. The results of the checks carried out by myself to research students present during the presentation of the summary. In the academic year 2023/2024 the course will be held probably from 7.07.2024 to 20.07.2024.
Lectures - defining of basic concepts: ecosystem, community, biocenosis and biotope. Model ecosystems· Reductionistic and holistic approach to ecosystems – critics of the „superorganism” concept · Structural and functional differences between terrestrial and freshwater (pelagic) ecosystems.·Biological productivity. Primary and secondary production, decomposition of biomass.· Energy fluxes through ecosystems. Trophic networks. ·Evolution of species interactions (predation, herbivory, competition) and ecological efficiency.· Grazing and detrital food chains. Microbial loop.·Length of food chains. „Top-down” and „bottom-up” control of the food chains.·Why the Earth is green? HSS hypothesis and alternative explanations of the relative abundance of plant biomass in biosphere·Biological diversity and its sources· Geographical patterns of biological diversity· Invasive species and their role in ecosytems· Ecosystem stability – myth of “the balance of nature”·Ecological succession – deterministic or stochastic process·Anthropological disturbance in ecosystem functioning·Remote sensing in ecosystems inventory, identification and protection. The aim of the course is to collect, elaborate, analyze and present data from the fieldwork and experiments conducted by the students and related to the main topics of community ecology. Proposed projects: ·Characteristics and comparison of rodents’, amphibians’ and terrestrial invertebrates’ communities in three selected types of habitats·Food preferences and daily feeding activity of selected species of amphibians and reptiles Predation impact on the broods of ground nesting birds – an experiment with the use of artificial nests ·Zooplankton of various aquatic ecosystems·Invertebrate macrofauna of rivers, lakes and small astatic waterbodies ·Diel vertical migrations of fish and zooplankton in lakes·Diurnal variation of selected abiotic factors in various types of waterbodies·Dynamics of phytoplankton biomass in aquatic ecosystems of various trophy and trophic structure (experiment)·The impact of fish on the structure of zooplankton communities·Littoral communities in various types of waterbodies