Bio 565 Community Ecology

Readings in Community Ecology Biology 565- SPRING 2008
Meeting time: W 2:50-4:05; F 12-1:15

Wk	Date	Topic
1	Jan 9	No Class
	Jan 11	Organizational meeting
2	Jan 16	John leads Lubchenco American Naturalist1978; Power et al. BioScience 1996.	Species Interactions and mechanisms affecting community structure (5)
	Jan 18	John leads Interaction Strength Wooton 1997
3	Jan 23	No Class
	Jan 25	John Productivity effects: Aunapuu et al. 2008 Spatial Patterns and Dynamic Responses of Arctic Food Webs Corroborate the Exploitation Ecosystems Hypothesis (EEH). Am. Nat. 171: 249; Michalet et al. 2006. Do biotic interactions shape both sides of the humped-back model of species richness in plant communities? Ecology Letters 9:767.
4	Jan 30	T is for Todd and Trophic Cascades Myers et al. 2007; Cascading Effects of the Loss of Apex Predatory Sharks from a Coastal Ocean. Science 315: 1846 Croll et al. 2005 Introduced Predators Transform Subarctic Islands from Grassland to Tundra. Science 307:1959
	Feb 1	Bridget Miller et al. 2005. 20 years of resource ratio theory.
5	Feb 6	Caitlin Davies et al. 2007. Productivity alters the scale dependence of the diveristy-invasibility relationship. Ecology 88:1440-1447 ; Tilman, D. 1997. Community invasibility, recruitment limitation and grassland biodiversity. Ecology 78:81–92.	Succession, assembly rules, and their relation to other topics (for example, community stability and invasibility)
	Feb 8	No Class
6	Feb 13	Ray Connell and Slatyer. 1977. Mechanisms of succession in natural communities and thier role in community stability and organization. Am. Nat. 111:1119. Walker et al. 1986 The role of life history processes in primary succession on an Alaskan floodplain. Ecology 67: 1243. You might also want to look at the abstract of the companion paper: Walker and Chapin 1986b. Phylsiological controls over seedling growth in primary succession on an Alaskan floodplain.
	Feb 15	No Class
7	Feb 20	Joel Scheffer et al. 2001. Nature 413: 591. Beninca et al. 2008. Nature 451: 822
	Feb 22	No Class
8	Feb 27	John Loreau and Hector. 2001. Partitioning selection and complementarity in biodiversity experiments. Nature 412: 72 Cardinale et al. 2007. Impacts of plant diversity on biomass production increase through time because of species complementarity. PNAS 104: 18123. Loreau 2007. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: The Mystery of the Deep Sea. Current Biology 18: R125. OPTIONAL!
	Feb 29	No Class
9	Mar 5	Ray - wants us to read three papers! Neutel et al. 2007. Reconciling complexity with stability in naturally assembling food webs Nature 449 Fargione et al. 2003. Community assembly and invasion: An experimental test of neutral versus niche processes. PNAS Bellwood and Hughes, 2001. Regional-Scale Assembly Rules and Biodiversity of Coral Reefs. Science 292: 1532.
	Mar 7	No Class
10	Mar 10-14	Spring Break - No Class	Neutral theory and metabolic theory of community diversity
11	Mar 19	Joel Wooton, T.J. 2005. Field parameterization and experimental test of the neutral theory of biodiversity. Nature 433: 309 Dornelas et al. 2006. Coral reef diversity refutes the neutral theory of biodiversity. Nature 440: 80. Whitfield 2002. Neutrality versus the Niche. Nature 417: 480. (news feature)
	Mar 21	No Class
12	Mar 26	Caitlin Adler, HilleRisLambers, and Levine. 2007. A niche for neutrality. Ecology Letters Wills et al. 2006. Nonrandom Processes Maintain Diversity in Tropical Forests. Science 311: 527
	Mar 28	Bridget Tilman, Hille Ris Lambers, et al. 2004. DOES METABOLIC THEORY APPLY TO COMMUNITY ECOLOGY? IT’S A MATTER OF SCALE. Ecology 84:1797. Algar, Kerr, Currie. 2007. A test of Metabolic Theory as the mechanism underlying broad-scale species-richness gradients. Global Ecol. Biogeogr. 16: 170. New York Times article on metabolic theory
13	Apr 2	Todd Li, W.K.W. 2002..Macroecological patterns of phytoplankton in the northwestern North Atlantic Ocean. Nature 419:254. Belgrano and Brown, J. 2002. Oceans under the macroscope. Nature 419: 128.	Applications of community ecology to your work.
	Apr 4	Ray Wright and Jones. 2004. PREDICTING EFFECTS OF ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS ON PATCH-SCALE SPECIES RICHNESS FROM PRIMARY PRODUCTIVITY. Ecology 85: 2071 read this one first. Jones et al. 1997. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF ORGANISMS AS PHYSICAL ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS. Ecology 78: 1946 read especially section on "Net Effects of Engineers"
14	Apr 9	No Class
	Apr 11	No Class
15	Apr 16	Bridget Hansson et al. 1998 - read first Skim: Zambrano et al. 2001. Catastrophic response of lakes to benthivorous fish introduction
	Apr 18	Todd, Caitlin Todd: Species-area relationships Primary Reading. Tittensor et al. 2007. Secondary Reading: Lomolino et al. 2000.
16	Apr 23	Joel Cloern & Dufford. 2005. Phytoplankton community ecology: principles applied in San Francisco Bay. Marine Ecology Progress Series. READ FIRST G.E. Hutchinson 1961. The paradox of the plankton. 95: 137-145.
	May 25	No Class

Requirements:

1. You must read the papers and be prepared to discuss them each week. Expect about two articles per discussion.

2. You must lead 2.5 discussions. When you lead discussion I expect that

a) You will pick the paper to read in close consultation with me.
b) You will read additional background material to help explain the significance of the focal paper(s).
c) You will provide an presentation of the paper(s) that will last 20-30 minutes. This will hopefully serve as a catalyst for discussion, in which case it may carry on longer.

3. 1.5 of your discussions will be within a general category that I'll be picking (for example, succession; assembly rules; neutral theory of community diversity, etc.). The last one will be on a topic that interests you the most or that is closely related to your research. For that topic, I will expect you to produce an annotated bibliography including at least 10 papers that you will share with the other class participants.