Assemblages of species from the local to the global

Undergraduate students at the University take various introductory ecology courses during their first two years of study. In their third year, they tackle several fundamental concepts of individual adaptation to the environment and interactions between species (Concepts in Evolutionary Ecology HLBE503). In particular, they explore r/K evolutionary strategies, linking the adaptation of life cycles to disturbance regimes in natural environments. I propose to continue the study of communities in line with these fundamentals, in order to illustrate the role of species' evolutionary strategies in community formation. This course will be based on a teaching sequence consisting of lectures, tutorials, and practical work in the form of field projects.

The lectures will present the basics of community ecology in three blocks. The first will concern the definition of a community and will address the history of the discipline's development through the perspectives of Gleason (1926) and Clements (1916). The second block will introduce the elements used to describe communities, with the concepts of diversity (alpha, beta, gamma) and their various indices. Finally, a third block will encourage students to reflect on the rules of assembly in communities, through the role of r/K evolutionary strategies in succession, the concepts of environmental filtering and functional similarity limitation.

These courses will run parallel to a series of tutorials organized according to a "data production-analysis-interpretation" model. Initially,serious games will be used to produce data based on simplified ecological mechanisms. To this end, several serious games that simulate communities are currently being developed. Students will collect this data in preparation for their analysis. The analysis will take the form of a computer workshop to familiarize students with diversity index calculations. Finally, time will be set aside to review the bibliography to determine whether the patterns produced throughout the sequence have biological reality and whether they have been observed in nature (independent work and report).

Once the tutorial sequence is complete, students will begin setting up in situ community ecology experiments through an introduction to field ecology, in the form of independent projects. As part of this practical, a workshop will allow students to test Grime's (1988) competitive (C), stress-tolerant (S), and ruderal (R) strategies through the analysis of plant functional traits. Simple methods have recently been published that allow individuals (and, by extension, communities) to be placed on Grime's triangle (Pierce et al., 2017). The sequence will begin with a field trip on campus: students will choose two contrasting environments (lawns, ruderal areas, woods, old walls) on which they will carry out a floristic inventory. They will then collect several individuals of each species and bring them back to the laboratory to measure various functional traits. Once the measurements have been taken, they will be able to calculate the various indices related to CSR strategy. The sequence will conclude with the writing of a report and an oral presentation. Other workshops are currently being developed.

- Implementation of experimental protocols in ecology (continuation of HLBE304 & 405)

- General knowledge of functional ecology (material cycle)

- concepts of population biology (r/K strategies)

- basic use of R (importing data – producing simple graphs)

- Correct use of Excel (data entry and sorting)

Assessment method: 100% continuous assessment

1/4: tutorial report

1/4: oral presentation (individual grade)

1/4: experience report (team memo)

1/4: terminal control

Knowledge

Definition of a community (history of the discipline's development; two approaches: Gleason and Clements)

Description of a community (concepts of diversity, alpha, beta, gamma, and indices)

Ecological functioning of a community (area-species relationship; concept of succession; r/K evolutionary strategies and community dynamics; Grime's CSR model; limited similarity in communities)

Interpersonal skills    

Autonomy     

Adaptation to terrain constraints (responsiveness)    

Group work

Know-how  

Fieldwork: conducting a protocol; identifying plants and animals studied

Laboratory: measurement of key functional traits in plants and animals

Data management: data entry; sorting using Excel spreadsheets; importing data into R

Representation: creating graphs with Excel; introduction to graphs in R

Analyses: calculation of alpha, beta, and gamma diversity indices with R

Output: report and scientific bibliography; oral presentation