FUNDAMENTS OF ECOLGY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- MICHELE MISTRI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/07
Training objectives
- The course aims at providing and improving the basic knowledge on the main topics of modern ecology, along with its evolution in the last century. Students are expected to achieve the skill to analyze ecosystem structure and process and to tackle the main ecological issues of sustainable environmental management, natural resources exploitation and nature conservation. With the study of the “home life” of living organisms, students will be able to understand the distribution and abundance of organisms, where they occur, how many they are and what they do. The course deals with three levels of concern: the individual organism, the population and the community. At the first level, answers will be given on how individuals are affected by (and how they affect) their biotic and abiotic environment. At the second level, on the presence or absence of particular species, with their abundance or rarity. At the ultimate level, on the composition and structure of communities, and on the pathways followed by energy, nutrients and other chemicals as they pass through them (the functioning of communities).
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The student:
- knows the proper biological terminology;
- has knowledge of biological subjects as general biology, zoology, botany;
- has knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry
ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The studenti is able to:
- use the proper biological terminology Prerequisites
- No formal propedeuticity is required, however the student must have basic knowledge of biology, with properties of language and scientific mastery.
Course programme
- The first part of the course is on biodiversity of life (24 h): what is ecology, diversity, ecology and evolution,niches, organisms and their environment, biomes, structure and composition of communities, ecological successions, global change.
The second part of the course is on demography (24 h): age and survival, population growth, life history, competition (intra-inter), dynamics of predators. Didactic methods
- The course is structured in theoretical lessons in order to transfer and explain the contents of the program, with the inclusion of practical examples, case studies, exercises, for a total of 48 hours of teaching (6 credits). Lessons are held weekly in the classroom and the exposure is done through the use of power-point slides.
Learning assessment procedures
- The objective of the exam consists in verifying the level of knowledge and in-depth study of the topics of the course program and the reasoning ability developed by the student. The evaluation is expressed in thirtieths (minimum score 18).
The exam procedure can be written or oral, at the student's choice.
The written test generally subjects the student to three short topics, one for each part of the program, to be carried out in a total of 90 minutes. The development of each theme is assessed for completeness of content, language properties, display clarity and ability to link the thematic units of the course, giving each theme a maximum score of 10 points. The exam is passed if the student has achieved a score equal to or greater than 6 in each topic and an overall score equal to or greater than 18.
The oral test consists of an interview that normally follows the same scheme as the written test, with a duration generally not less than 20 minutes. Again, the exam is passed if the student demonstrates a sufficiently thorough knowledge of each question asked. The exam is not considered passed if the student cannot substantially argue about one of the questions asked, or if during the entire exam the student limits himself to exposing a few statements without demonstrating them. Reference texts
- Pusceddu et al.
Ecologia
UTET
Powerpoint presentations, handouts and scientific papers are also provided.
