Climate Change

Human activity, including burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and buring trees, has altered the global carbon cycle. This alternation of the global carbon cycle is the proposed cause of global climate change (global warming).

Obviously, global climate change is a very imporant issue facing us today. If you are alive and paying any attention, then you probably know that there is some disgreement out there about (1) whether global warming is occuring, (2) if it is occuring is it a natural occurence or is it caused by humans, and (3)what should we as individuals and a society do about these issues. As I mentioned in class, it is very important that you understand what components of the debate are facts and what components of the debate are based on mathematical models or other forms of argument. I think that it is important that you should be able to explain to other people why scientists will never be able to conduct the experiment that will nail down whether or not humans are causing global warming (we have only one earth).


Further Reading

Carbon cycle- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_cycle

Global warming- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Global_warming

Global warming Frequenty Asked Questions- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Global_warming_frequently_asked_questions

Climate change FAQ- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_change_FAQs

Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change_%28IPCC%29

IPCC Assessment for Policymakers- http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report%2C_Working_Group_I%3A_Summary_for_Policymakers




Here is a link to a powerpoint presentation that I have used in other classes.

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/j33lxyHuPGwVzS

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course a fully engaged student should be able to

- describe why climate scientists have concluded that global temperatures are increasing

- describe why climate scientists have concluded that humans are the cause of this increase in temperature

- discuss changes, other than increases in temperature, that are thought to be caused by humans increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Competition

Competition is one of the most important interspecific ecological interactions. Interspecific competition can influence biodiversity, population sizes, and phenotypic characteritstics.

Readings

Competition- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Competition

Intraspecific competition- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Intraspecific_competition

Interspecific competition- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Interspecific_competition?topic=58074

Exploitative competition- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Exploitative_competition

Competitive exclusion principle- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Competitive_exclusion_principle

Powerpoint Slideshow

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/competition-mbea-activity

Here are the Smart Board Notes on the Lotka-Voltera Model of Competition

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/lotkavolterra-model-of-competition

Clutch Size Model

I have been extremely impressed with the level of detail that Brock has been able to cover in his discussions about calculus. It has been very informative for me to listen to his presentations as well.  Although we don't expect any of you to be considered as "calculus scholars" after just a couple of days of instruction, I have seen that you all have a greater understanding and appreciation about how calculus works, and even more importantly, you don't fear discussions of issues using calculus as a tool.

I wanted to briefly introduce the clutch size model as an example of how ecologists can use calculus in mathematical models that they use to answer questions in ecology. I have used this approach to study house building in woodrats, foraging in beavers, and reproduction in plants.


Here is a link to the Smart Board Notes.

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/smart-board-notes-clutch-size

If you ever need a sleep aid, then here are links to a couple of papers where I use mathematical and graphical analysis to try to understand the world. The first is one of the main papers from my Ph.D. and the second is from my Masters.

Parental investment in offspring in variable environments: theoretical and empirical considerations, by Mark McGinley, David Temme, and Monica Geber.
http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/mcginley-temme-and-geber-1989

Central place foraging for non-food items:determination of the stick size-value relationship of house building materials collected by eastern woodrats. by Mark McGinley.
http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/woodrat-paper

Brock's Calculus Notes from Last Year

Here is the link to Brock's Smart Board Notes about Calculus. June 22nd, 2011

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/brocks-smart-board-notes-calculus

Here is the link to Brock's Smart Board notes. June 23rd, 2011

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/brocks-smart-board-notes-june-23

Introduction to Biodiversity

Readings

Biodiversity- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biodiversity

Species Diversity- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Species_diversity

Species Richness- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Species_richness


Slideshows

Introduction to Biodiversity

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/introduction-to-biodiversity-8383743

Biodiversity: Species, Classification, and Importance

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/biodiversity-species-classification-importance


Species Diversity in Malaysian Bats- Exercise

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/iQrgbLVr19ozgo

Diversity Exercise- Nemo

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/biodiversity-exercisenemo

Diversity Exercise- Candy

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkMcGinley/diversity-exercise-candy-8383776

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course a fully engaged student should be able to

- define biodiversity

- discuss components of biodiversity including species richness, species evenness, genetic diversity, etc.

- develop your own "metric" to measure biodiveristy

- use diversity indices such as Shannon Index and Simpson Index

Free Learning- Additional Ecology Content

Because the goal of the MS Squared program is to integrate math and science, this Ecology course contains less ecological content than it would it ecology was the sole focus of the course. I develop course blogs for many of my courses and these blogs contain many lessons that might prove useful or interesting to you. Enjoy

The Rio Grande Class 
http://riograndeclass.blogspot.com/

I teach this course through the Honors College at Tech for students majoring in Environment and the Humanities degree program. This class focuses on the ecology of the Rio Grande River and the surrounding land. The highlight of this course is a week-long canoe trip along the Rio Grande River through Big Bend National Park. Some of the lessons in this blog-

1) Rivers and the hydrologic cycle

2) Importance of the physical environment

3) Adaptations to desert environments

4) Riparian zones

5) Stream Ecology

6) Disturbance Ecology

7) Invasive species

Ecology: The Science Behind Environmental Issues
http://ecologyseminar2011.blogspot.com/

This is a upper division seminar course that I teach in the Honors College. The goal of this course is to provide the basic ecological information required to understand current environmental issues. Some of the topics covered in this blog include-

1) Global carbon cycle and climate change

2) Ecosystem services

3) Biodiversity

Prairies and Rainforests
http://prairiesandrainforests2012.blogspot.com/

I taught this course for the first time last spring.  This course was intended for students majoring in Environment and the Humanities.  The purpose of the class was to examine how the physical environment influenced the ecology, history, and environmental issues of two diverse ecosytems- prairies and tropical rainforests.


Perspectives in Nature and the Environment
http://perspectivesinnature.blogspot.com/

This is a seminar course for incoming Freshmen in the Honors College. Some of the topics covered in this course include-

1) Community Ecology and the Portal Experiment

2) Ecosystem Ecology

3) Environmental Ethics

4) Religion and the Environment

UM Special Topics in E&B
http://umspecialtopics.blogspot.com/

This is the course that I taught about Ecology and Biodiversity (E&B) at the University of Malaya (UM) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last year while I was a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia.

Human Population Growth

I have spent a lot of time telling you that exponential growth is an unrealistic model of population growth. Interestingly, human populations have experienced exponential-like growth. How can this be?

What makes humans different from other species?

In other species per capita birth rates and per capita deaths rates are density dependent. However, as human populations have increased there has been no corresponding decline in per capita birth rates or increase in per capita death rates. What makes humans different from other species?

Humans have the ability to alter their environment so that they can avoid the density dependent effects on birth and death rates. 1) Humans have increased food production by improvements in agriculture (e.g., irrigation, fertilization, mechanized farming, genetically improved crops). 2) Humans have been able to decrease death rates by improvements in medicine and public health (things as simple as not pooping in the water you drink helps a lot!). 3) Humans have elimnated most human predators (ocassionally, someone gets killed by a shark or a mountain lion).

Where is human population growth occuring?

The rates of human population growth are not the same in all regions. Today, human populations are increasing in size much faster in developing countries (e.g., Mexico, other countries in Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia) than they are in developed countries (e.g, USA, Canda, Western Europe). The figure at the top of this post shows the patterns of population growth in developed and developing nations.

Thus we see that populations are increasing most rapidly in the countries that are least able to deal with a rapidly increasing population. See "Population Challenges-The Basics" that can be downloaded from the Population Institute's website.
http://www.populationinstitute.org/population-issues/index.php

Human Population Growth Problem?

There is a great deal of debate about whether increasing human populations are a problem or not, and if they are what should be done about it. Unfortunately, we don't have time to discuss this issue in very much detail in class. My personal opinion is that we have too many people consuming too many resources and the last thing that we need are billions more people living on the planet. This is an issue that I am always intersted in talking more about if you would like to chat.

Further Reading

Here is a link to the article "Human Population Explostion" from the EoE.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Human_population_explosion

Really Cool Video

Here is a link to a YouTube video on "World Population" The first minute and a half or so is a little boring, so you can skip over it if you wish. However, I think the animation showing when and where human population growth has been occuring is really cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BbkQiQyaYc

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course a fully engaged student should be able to

- describe patterns of human population growth in developed and developing nations

- discuss some reasons why the pattern of population growth in humans is so different from that in other species

- describe the demographic transition

- discuss their own personal view of human population growth.