Seminars and weekend field trips. Goals and contributions of ecological theory. Formulation of models and applications to data. Topics include demography, population growth, community interactions, food webs, metapopulations, disturbance, structure, stochasticity, chaos, and patchiness. Model development, analysis, and interpretation.
Discussions focus on classical and current primary literature.
Analysis of data using SPlus, making use of likelihood models, bootstrapping, and Bayesian approaches. Further description can be found in ZOO 269 . Processes controlling the circulation of carbon and biochemical elements in natural ecosystems and at the global level, with emphasis on soil and surficial processes. Fitness concepts, life history evolution, mating systems, genetic divergence, and causes and maintenance of genetic diversity. Methods in Morphometrics.