BIOB50 Lec 1 Notes - September 3, 2024 (Read Chapter 1,2)

Learning Goals
BIOB50H3F is an introductory course to Ecology. Students in this course will:
● become familiar with fundamental ecological principles and concepts across all ecological
levels of biological organization, from the individual level (physiological/behavioral), to populations,
communities, and ecosystems
● become familiar with classical ecological studies and results that form the foundation for modern
ecological studies and applications
● learn how to interpret different types of ecological data, including theoretical, observational,
experimental, and modeling studies
● learn how to formulate and test ecological hypotheses in various contexts
● learn how to formulate, apply, analyze, and interpret basic ecological models for individual,
population, and community dynamics
● learn how to use spreadsheet programs to implement and evaluate basic population and
community dynamics models
● learn how to apply ecological principles, concepts, and models to understand applied aspects of
ecology, such as disease ecology, climate change impacts, and approaches to conservation biology
What is Ecology?
Early Ecologists
● Throughout their history, people have tried to understand how nature works. Knowledge passed on over
generations (traditional ecological knowledge) and/or acquired by knowledgeable locals (local
ecological knowledge) remain an important source of ecological understanding to this day.
● In the western literature, ecological writings (describing relationships between animals and plants) can
be traced back as far back as Aristotle and his students (4th century BC)
● Leaps in knowledge occurred during the 17th-19th century when naturalists greatly advanced their
fields.
○ Taxonomy = classification of organisms
○ Biogeography = study of the geographic distribution of species

Definition and the Beginnings of Modern Ecology

● The term “ecology” was coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, from oikos (Greek: “household”, “home”,
“place to live”) and logos (Greek: “study of”): Ecology is the scientific study of the interactions of
organisms with their environment and one another that determine their distributions and abundances.
○ “By Ökologie we mean the comprehensive science of the relationships of the organism to its
surrounding environment, in which we include, in the broader sense, all "conditions of existence.

● Ecology: is the scientific study of the interactions of organisms with their environment and one another
that determine their distributions and abundances.
○ Finding the “why” in the distribution of specific organisms in various environments
A marine trophic cascade
● After nearly a century of recovering from overhunting, sea otter populations were suddenly in decline
over large areas of their range during the late 20th century. Simultaneously, increased predation by
orcas was observed, and kelp forests were lost and being replaced by urchin barrens.
○ What is happening?
● Normally, orcas eat sea lions, but with the decrease in sea lions (not enough fish to eat because of
overfishing), orcas start hunting sea otters more often
● The urchin population increases as the sea otter population decreases due to insufficient food
resources (fish) and pressure of predators (orcas). This results in the urchin barrens.

Land Use Change Impacts on Schistosomiasis Epidemics

● Parasite uses snails as a host first before transforming into a form where they can attack humans
● “You don’t need to remember every detail of this example but understanding the interactions of animals
is important.”
Everything in Nature is Interconnected
● In general, organisms within
ecosystems are connected in myriads
of ways (e.g., through their resource
needs), leading to complex interaction
webs (cf. Lecture 9 for details).
● (food webs) → interconnected systems

Ecology in the Anthropocene

The “Great Acceleration”
● In the Anthropocene, human impact has now grown to the point that it has changed the course of
Earth’s history for millennia. Human actions dominate the planet and have led to a biological world that
is rapidly shifting towards an unknown future state.

Anthropogenic Impacts on Ecosystems

● Ecologists are facing numerous new challenges in the Anthropocene, including understanding the
impacts of, and devising mitigation strategies for:

“Doctor to an Unwilling Patient”

● “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of
the damage inflicted on the land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell
and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor
who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told
otherwise.” - Aldo Leopold (1949), In A Sand County Almanac
“But I’m not an Ecologist.”

- “Same model that can be applied to various contexts”

Course Overview
Levels of Biological Organization
● Individual: what are the physical tolerances of this organism in such an environment?
○ How do they forage in certain environments
● Population: group of the same species
● Community: various species in same area interacting with each other
● Ecosystem: Community interacting with their environment
● Biosphere: everything on Earth
Lecture Schedule

Think-Pair-Share (in-class activity)

● The geographic range of malaria is expanding. Imagine you are a public health manager, who is tasked
with understanding the ecological dynamics of this change, predicting where / when / and in what
abundance malaria will be present in different areas around the globe, and devising mitigation
strategies. Look at this course’s Lecture Schedule & write down scientific questions (one for each
lecture topic) about the ecological dynamics of malaria that you think might help you with these tasks.
● Organisms/Their Environment: Which organism spreads this disease and in which environment do they
thrive?
● Individuals: What is the mosquito’s behavior around certain blood types? What are their special
characteristics?
● Population dynamics (1): What factors increase/decrease the mosquito pop? (How can we expect the
mosquito pop. to grow over time?)
● Population dynamics (2): Why do they thrive better in the heat?
● Competition: Is there a competitor that prevents mosquitoes from spreading the disease?
● Exploitation (1, predation): What predators are there for mosquitoes?
● Exploitation (2, parasitism/disease): Are there certain bacteria/viruses that stop the disease from
spreading inside the mosquitos?
● Multispecies Interactions/Food Webs: If we removed mosquitoes, would it impact us negatively?
● Biodiversity/Biogeography: How are different mosquitoes carrying this disease distributed
geographically?
● Communities through time: How many people will be infected by this disease in ratio?
● Global Change Ecology: How will this impact us globally?

HOW DO WE LEARN ABOUT ECOLOGY?

1) Observation & Natural History
2) Experimental Ecology & Null Hypothesis Testing
3) Multiple Hypothesis Testing with Best-Fit Comparisons
4) Ecological Modelling
 ● In modern times, observation remains critical to the study of ecology but has shifted away from
describing species to describing broad ecological patterns combined with other approaches of scientific
analysis.
○ Example: National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), collecting >175 types of
open-access data from 81 locations across 20 different ecological domains following
standardized protocols
Experimental Ecology & Null Hypothesis Testing
● From the second half of the 20th century onwards, ecologists increasingly began to apply manipulative
experiments and statistical hypothesis testing
○ (i.e., researchers develop hypotheses about the mechanisms that lead to observed
ecological patterns, and then conduct carefully designed experiments to produce
evidence for supporting or rejecting the hypothesis)
Example: Lynx-Snowshoe Hare
Observation:
● One of the most famous and best-documented patterns in
ecology is the predator-prey cycle of lynx and snowshoe
hare. Data go back to the mid-19th century based on
records of pelts that were received by the Hudson Bay’s
Company.

● Ecological theory suggests

that “+/- relationships”
between consumers and
their resources may lead to
population cycles in both the
consumer and the resource.

Experiment:
● Charlie Krebs & colleagues designed a large-scale field experiment to test whether hare cycles are a
consequence of predation or due to competition for limited food supplies. They set up 1km x 1km
blocks of forest in Yukon, YT, where they monitored hare densities & survival rates for eight years.
○ Four areas: control group, addition of food, removal of predator,
addition of food and removal of predator
Results:
“Predator exclosure doubled and food addition tripled hare density during the cyclic
peak and decline. Predator exclosure combined with food addition increased
density 11-fold. […] Food and predation together had a more than additive effect,
which suggests that a three-trophic-level interaction generates hare cycles.”
Approaches to Ecology: Multiple Hypothesis Testing with Best-Fit Comparisons
● In many situations, experiments cannot be repeated (e.g., due to ecosystem idiosyncrasies over
time and space), or conducted logistically (e.g., experimental approaches are typically biased
towards small species and short timescales), or ethically (e.g., experimentally testing the effects of an
increasingly stressful climate on an endangered species)
○ It’s not easy to repeat experiments because you need the same ecosystem conditions
● However, large amounts of various types of data are often available or can be can collected by
observation only, without manipulation. Similar to real-life sleuths, ecological detectives can use these
data to assess the strength of evidence for a suite of hypotheses regarding which ecological processes
might operate.

○ Compare which data is closest to the line of best fit

Example: Sea Lice Epidemics on Salmon

● In the early 2000s, infestations of young juvenile
salmon with a parasitic copepod, commonly
known as “sea louse”, began being reported from
the Broughton Archipelago, BC.
○ Sea louse (parasite) is killing off salmon

● Suspicions began to emerge that the sea lice may

be originating from one or more fish farms along
the salmon migration route.
● Sampling within the farm is not possible.
Experimentally removing the farm is also not
possible. So, how can we evaluate the evidence
for this hypothesis?
 ● Multiple hypotheses may explain the presence of sea lice on migrating juvenile salmon. However, each
hypothesis suggests a different spatial pattern of sea louse occurrence.

● Results: more parasites are found near the fish farms than near the spawns (figures with error bars)
● The data suggest that sea lice occur naturally throughout the fjord (body of water) and that there is a
particularly strong infection hotspot at the location of the fish farm.
Ecological Modelling
● Models play a fundamental role in modern ecology.
● Similar to experiments they allow exploring how various factors affect ecological dynamics, but
without the need for experimental manipulation.
● “Every model is wrong, but some are useful.” (George Box). Models can be used in many ways,
including for:
○ understanding the mechanisms that lead to ecological patterns
○ testing complex hypotheses against data
○ estimating missing information (e.g., population numbers)
○ identifying what we don’t understand about a system - guiding management
○ providing forecasts
● How much realism is included in a model depends on its purpose.
● Many types of models are commonly used in ecology. Models may be conceptual or
mathematical; mathematical models may be analytical or simulation-based.
Example: The Lotka-Volterra Model of Predation
● Type: Analytical Model; Use: Formalize Complex Ideas about Interactions; Generalize Understanding

Example: Sea Turtle Demographics and Conservation

● Type: Simulation Model; Use: Guide Management Strategies

Example: Climate Change and Malaria

● Type: Simulation Model; Use: Climate Change Impact Assessment