Pechenik, J. 2001. A Short Guide to Writing About Biology. Includes instruction on experimental design, quantitative sampling, data acquisition and interpretation as well as the preparation of project reports.
Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with their natural environments.
While it is relatively easy to ask these kinds of questions, it is often quite difficult to answer them unequivocally. In this course, I will combine lectures and field-oriented labs to present the general methods that ecologists use to collect data that they can use to answer these questions, and an understanding of how these data are analyzed and interpreted. Lectures will review basic ecological principles, ideas and theories, present the mechanics and theoretical backgrounds of methods that are used to address these issues, introduce the principles of experimental design and ecological sampling, and introduce the basic statistical methods used to analyze experimental results. In addition, we will read, critique and discuss papers from the primary literature. Labs will emphasize how ecologists test their ideas, through quantitative observations and manipulative experiments.