NRS534
Graduate Seminar in the
Ecology of Fragmented Landscapes (2 credits)
Instructors: Pete August, URI; Jeff
Hollister, EPA Narragansett Lab
Goals: Review the general concepts and principles of landscape ecology and evaluate
a couple of exciting emerging themes: the ecology of roads, predictive modeling,
and a topic of general interest chosen by the students.
Format: Students will be assigned general topics to research and for each topic,
choose papers to read and lead class discussion. Each student will be required
to choose readings one or more times. Students will be also chosen to lead
class discussions one or more times.
Student Responsibilities: 1) Attend all meetings and participate
in discussions. 2) Lead or co-lead
a session. This means pick papers to review and keep the discussion moving.
3) Prepare an annotated bibliography and 3-5 page white
paper on the topic due at the end of the semester.
Meeting Time: Mondays 3:00 - 5:00 PM, Coastal Institute in Kingston, Room
026
Grading:
Grades will be based on class participation (40%), the bibliography (30%),
and the white paper (30%).
Misc:
Need back copies of the Journal of Landscape Ecology? Click here.
Are you a member of US-IALE? Click here
for more info.
2009
Bibs:
Tentative schedule:
Week
1 (1/26) Intro Session
Week
2 (2/2) Landscape Ecology Basics.
Also, read the overview of LE at this
web site
Pickett,
S.T.A., and M.L. Cadenasso. 1995. Landscape ecology: spatial heterogeneity
in ecological systems. Science 269:331-334.
Risser, P.G., J.R. Karr, and R.T.T.
Forman. 1984. Landscape ecology: directions and approaches. Special Publ.
No. 2, Ill. Natural Hist. Surv., Champaign.
Turner, M.G. 1989.
Landscape ecology: the effect of pattern on process. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst.
20:171-197
Turner, M. 2005.
Landscape ecology: what is the state of the science? Annual Review of Ecology,
Evolution and Systematics.
Students Develop Reading
List (2/9). There will be no class. Students will use the day to prepare a
list of suggested papers for the second half of the semester.
Week
3 (2/18) Landscape Ecology
Basics (reading and discussion of classic papers). J
Week
4 (2/23) Landscape Ecology
in Europe
Week
5 (3/2) Seminar Speaker, Weaver Hall.
Jennifer Caselle, UC Santa
Barbara "Design and evaluation of marine protected area networks"
Week
6 (3/9) Quantitative Assessment of
Landscapes. J
Week
Off (3/16) Spring Break
Week
7 (3/23) Basics of Road Ecology.
Forman,
R. T. T. and L. E. Alexander. 1998. Roads and their major ecological effects.
Annual Reviews of Ecology and Systematics
Eigenbrod, F., S. Hecnar, L. Fahrig.
2008. Accessible habitat: an improved measure of the effects of habitat
loss and roads on wildlife populations. Landscape Ecol., 23:159–168
Trombulak and Frissel.
2000. Review of Ecological Effects of Roads. Conservation Biology
(Note -- this is a large compedium on road ecology if you are interested in
this topic) Forman, R. T. T. 2002. Road Ecology: Science and solutions. Island
Press
Week
8 (3/30), Human Dimensions of Landscape Ecology. J --
MEET AT EPA
Nassauer,
J. and P. Opdam. 2008. Design in science: extending the landscape ecology
paradigm. Landscape Ecol., 23:633–644
White, D., et al. 1997.
Assessing Risks to biodiversity from future landscape change. Conservation
Biology 11(2):349-360, April 1997
Grove et al. 2006. Characterization
of Households and its Implications for the Vegetation of Urban Ecosystems.
Ecosystems, 9: 578–597
Week
9 (4/6) Seminar
Speaker, Weaver Hall. Oswald Schmitz, Yale University
(Second Annual Ledermann Lecture) "The importance of conserving biodiversity
for ecosystem sustainability"
Representative Papers (1,
2)
Week
10 (4/13) Grazing to enhance landscape heterogeneity
Loffler,
J. 2000. High Mountain Ecosystems and Landscape Degradation in Northern
Norway. Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 20, No. 4: 356-363
Soderstrom,
B ., T. Part, E. Linnarsson. 2001. Grazing Effects on Between-Year Variation
of Farmland Bird Communities. Ecological Applications, Vol. 11: 1141-1150.
Romme,
W.H., M. Turner, L. Wallace, J. Walker. 1995. Aspen, Elk, and Fire in
Northern Yellowstone Park. Ecology, Vol. 76: 2097-2106
David
Preston, Jamie Fairbairn, Narel Paniagua, Glenn Maas, Martha Yevara, Stephan
Beck. 2003. Grazing and Environmental Change on the Tarija Altiplano,
Bolivia. Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 23: 141-148
Week
11 (4/20). Corridors
Week
12 (4/27). Landscapes in freshwater and marine ecosystems
and home range dynamics
Treml,
E. et al. 2008. Modeling population connectivity by ocean currents, a
graph-theoretic approach for marine conservation. Landscape Ecol.
Wiens,
J. 2002. Riverine landscapes: taking landscape ecology into the water.
Freshwater Biology 47: 501-515
Knutson,
M. et al. 1999. Effects of Landscape Composition and Wetlands Fragmentation
on Frog and Toad Abundacne and Species Richness in Iowa and Wisconsin, USA.
Cons Bio.13:1437-1446
Home
Range Papers (3 in a zip file)
FINAL
Projects
May 11, CIK 026 -- Bibs, White Papers, and Oral Presentations,
3:00 PM