Ecology Redesign

The Use of Ecological Disasters to Infuse Entrepreneurship and Logistics into Ecology

In 2016, Farnaz Ghazi-Nezami and I were awarded a grant from the KEEN Foundation, via Kettering University, to redesign the Ecology course at Kettering University.  This redesigned course focuses on the use of ecological data from ecological disasters, both natural and man made, for students to understand the impact of various types of ecological disasters, recognize the extent of the disaster, and identify solutions to the ecological issue.  Through analyzing this type of data and thinking and discussing impact, students gain a greater understanding of real-world ecological issues, ecological methods and statistics, social entrepreneurship, and critical thinking.  Additionally, this type of approach to teaching ecology, I believe, facilitates a better comprehension of the connections among the various levels of the ecology (e.g., organism and ecosystem) than treating each of these levels of the ecological hierarchy in isolation.  The seven current in-class modules are discussed below, and if you would like to use the powerpoint presentations and/or datasets, please email me at jcohen at kettering.edu.  

The Gold King Mine Spill

On August 5, 2015, 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage (AMD) in the Gold King Mine was released into the Animas River, which flows into the Colorado River.  The AMD contained various heavy metals, including lead and arsenic, and approximately 190 tons of solids.  The river is fast flowing and lacked dams, so the only solution was to let the AMD become diluted as it moved downstream.  Many of the acids and metals became diluted or bound to solids, resulting in settling in the river bottom sediments.  Using data from the surface water and the sediment, from various collection sites, students analyze the abundance and change of various types of heavy metals in this type of riparian ecosystem.  Through this topic, students learn about the properties of water, aquatic ecosystems, the hydrologic cycle, osmoregulation, the movement of energy in ecosystems, and food webs and bioaccumulation and biomagnification.

Invasive Species - 

Invasive species are species not native to a particular area.  They can cause havoc to native species and ecosystems through competition, predation, hybridization, extirpation, extinction, alterations to the biotic and abiotic components of ecoystems, etc.  Using data from Leishman et al. (2012), students investigate various ecological traits of invasive species in both their native and invasive environments to identify differences that may occur in the two ecosystems.  Through this module, students learn about life history, competition, the spatial distribution of populations, ecological sampling methods, and databases that track invasive species.

Forestry - Hubbard Brook

Forests are common ecosystems across the eastern US, including Michigan.  As humans, we require forests for various products, such as timber and food, but we need to balance our use of forest products with forest health.  Obtaining the correct balance through forest management can be challenging, and in order to be able to appropriately consider thoughtful approaches balancing harvest and sustainability of forests, students need to understand terrestrial biomes, soil, the carbon cycle, and succession.  Through this module, students analyze community structure data, following a clearcut, at Watershed 5 at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, and students are asked to think about the utility and impact of clearcutting compared to other forestry practices.

Disease - Microbotryum and Silene

Disease is common across all different groups of life.  One area where disease is notable involves host-parasite interactions.  In this module, students are exposed to one of the myraid of host-parasite relationships: the fungus Microbotryum and its host, plants in the genus Silene.  Students learn about population demographics and fluctuations, carrying capacity, parasitism, and population genetics.  Indeed, during this module students have the opportunity to work with microsatellite sequence data from Bueker et al. (2016) and STRUCTURE to examine patterns of population demography of the fungus.  Additionally, students look at data from herbarium specimens (data from Bueker et al. [2016] and from Jstor Global Plants) to investigate the spread of the fungus throughout the range of species of Silene.  Here is a link to the STRUCTURE tutorial for the Bueker et al. (2016) dataset.

Pollination Biology 

Pollination biology is important ecologically as well as economically.  Changes in the presence and abundance of pollinators can reduce pollen transfer among individuals of a population, and a decline in pollinators across the globe can have a major impact on agricultural productivity.  In this module, students learn about reproduction, mutualistic relationships, metapopulations and migration, and social interactions.  Students analyze a dataset from Bartomeus et al. (2013) focused on pollinator synchrony, throughout time, for apple to help examine the potential impact of climate change, and the importance of synchrony, on plants and their pollinators.

El Nino Southern Oscillation

While the El Nino Southern Oscillation and its effects are frequently discussed in the media, the underlying causes of El Nino tend to be overlooked.  The impacts of El Nino can have large impacts on global climates and weather patterns, which, in turn, can affect human activity.  In this module, students learn about the properties of air, local and global movement of air and water, population fluctuation, and mutualisms, and students investigate data from Chang-Yang et al. (2016) on the impact of El Nino on flower and seed production in forests in Taiwan.  This dataset gives students the opportunity to not only understand the temporal variation in temperature and precipitation but also the effect of these weather patterns on ecological processes of various plant species.

Tree Regeneration - Hurricane Hugo

Disturbance can take many different forms, and the response that forests have to disturbance can vary depending on the extent of the damage and type of disturbance.  One type, hurricanes, can have different impacts depending on the strength of the storm, with Hurricane Hugo, in 1989, being particularly devastating to areas of the Caribbean and southeastern US.  In this module, students learn about adaptation to variation, population growth, community structure, keystone species, and response to disturbance.  Students analyze data on plant regeneration and gap structure, following Hurricane Hugo, from El Verde Field Station in Puerto Rico, in order to understand community dynamics after a large disturbance.