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TERM:2021-22 Winter
COURSE NUMBER: BIOL 438
COURSE TITLE: Plant Ecology
NAME OF INSTRUCTOR: Vern Peters
CREDIT WEIGHT AND WEEKLY TIME DISTRIBUTION: credits 3(hrs lect 3 - hrs sem 0 - hrs lab 3)
CALENDAR DESCRIPTION: Topics covered in plant ecology include ecophysiology, population biology, the structure and dynamics of plant communities, ecosystems, and landscapes, and climate and vegetation interactions. Field methods and analysis techniques for studying plant ecology will be covered.

Prerequisites: BIOL 330 and STAT 300
REQUIRED TEXTS: A selection of readings from freely available online textbooks will be used.  These include:
  • Forests in our Changing World.  2014.  Joseph Landsberg and Richard Waring, Island Press
  • Forest Ecology.  2014. by Jiri Kulkavy, Josef Suchomel, and Ladislav Mensik. Mendel University in Brno
  • Forest Ecology, Management and Restoration.  Aduardo Hapke
  • Plant Ecology – Michael Crawley (1996)
A selection of contemporary articles will be reviewed from the journals:  
  • Plant Ecology
  • Forest Ecology and Management
  • Forests
  • Restoration Ecology
  • International Journal of Wildland Fire
  • Global Change Biology 
MARK DISTRIBUTION IN PERCENT:
Mid-term I25%
Lab reports30%
Lab participation10%
Class participation10%
Final Exam25%
100%
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
  •  To familiarize students with the interactions between plants, between plants and their environment, and how these dynamics structure plant populations and communities
  • To familiarize students with the foundational concepts and approaches to the study of plant ecology
  • To lay the foundation for applied and quantitatively based studies in plant ecology
  • To do plant ecology by designing, collecting, and analyzing data at greenhouse, population, and landscape scales.
  • To appreciate the complexity of plants as living and adaptive organisms, and thereby appreciate God as creator and the challenges of meeting our mandate of being stewards of creation
COURSE OUTLINE:
  • Part I. Introduction
    • Forests in Human History (For. Changing World, pg 2)
    • The state of the worlds forests (Forest Ecosystems, 1.3, For. Changing World, pg 18)
    • Forests as part of the global ecosystem (Forest Ecosystems, 3.1 – 2 )
    • CASE STUDY:  Forest Conservation and Forest Resource Ethic (Pinchot)
  • Part II. Major forest types and their Climatic Controls (Forest Ecosystems, 4.1 – 4.4 )
    • On being evergreen Evergreen, Deciduous, or Mixed (For. Changing World, Chap. 2)
    • Tropical Forests (For. Changing World, Chap. 2, Tropical Nature)
    • Seed Dispersal and Forest Distributional Shifts (Crawley, Plant Ecology)
    • Plantations v.s Managed Forests (For. Changing World, Chap. 2)
    • CASE STUDY:  Aspen dieback in the Parkland Ecosystem (Ted Hogg, CJFR)
  • Part III.  Disturbance in Forest Ecosystems
    • Fire, Wind, Insects, and Stress (Forest Ecosystems 7.1 – 7.7)
    • Eat me – Herbivory and Plant Defenses (Crawley, and Tropical Nature) 
    • The regeneration niche (Grub, 1952)
    • Patterns and mechanisms of succession
    • CASE STUDY:  Fire regimes under increasing CO2 (Mike Flannigan)
    • CASE STUDY:  Social vulnerability and smoke dispersal (FEMR – Hapke, Article 8)
  • Part IV.  Resilience, Adaptation, and Reclamation
    • Resilience (For. Changing World, pg. 10)
    • Assisted Migration
    • Forest Conservation and Restoration
    • Genetics, and Evolutionary Aspects (Sniezco - WBP)
    • Forest Soils and Reclamation
    • CASE STUDY:  Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Restoration Strategy
  • Part V.  Forests and Biodiversity
    • Habitat, Food Webs, Niche Overlap, and Diversity (Forest Ecosystems, 9.1 – 9.4)
    • Relationship between diversity and structure (Forest Ecosystems, 10.1 – 10.2)
    • CASE STUDY:  Forest Structure and Songbird Communities (Au Sable C.U.R.E.)
    • CASE STUDY:  Lichen Monitoring Delineates Biodiversity (FEMR, Chapter 7)
  • Part VI.  Forest Productivity and Carbon Accounting
    • Net Primary Productivity of major forest types vs. monocultures (Forest Ecosystems, 15.1 – 3)
    • Ecosystem Services and living in the wildland forest interface (FEMR, Chapter 5)
    • CASE STUDY:  Forest Harvest for areas involving Carbon and Timber Management (FEMR, Chapter 3)
  • Part VII. Stewardship of Creation and Ecology
    • Caring for creation informs forest management (Reforesting Faith)
    • CASE STUDY:  Au Sable and well-site reclamation
LAB OUTLINE:Tentative Lab Topics1
  • Competition experiment – individual scale, greenhouse
  • Seed ecology study – population scale, fieldwork
  • Forest age structure analysis – population scale, fieldwork
  • Lichen community diversity – community scale, field work
Skills
  • Forest Mensuration techniques
  • Experimental Design
  • Statistical analysis (ANOVA, multiple regression, ordination)
  • Scientific report writing
  • Evaluating the primary literature



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