Species assemblages from local to global

Students in the University's general bachelor's program take a number of introductory ecology courses during their first two years of study. In L3, they are introduced to a number of fundamental concepts concerning the adaptation of individuals 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 include the study of communities in the continuity of these foundations, in order to illustrate the role of species' evolutionary strategies in community formation. The teaching will be based on a sequence 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 deals with the definition of a community, and the historical development of the discipline, through the perspectives of Gleason (1926) and Clements (1916). The second block will introduce the elements of community description, with the notions of diversities (alpha, beta, gamma) and their various indices. Finally, a third block will enable students to reflect on the rules of assemblages in communities, through the role of r/K evolutionary strategies in successions, the notions of environmental filter and functional similarity limitation.

These courses will run in parallel with a "data production-analysis-interpretation" sequence of tutorials. Initially,serious games will be used to generate data based on simplified ecological mechanisms. To this end, several serious games for simulating communities are currently under development. These data will be collected by the students in preparation for their analysis. This will take the form of a computer-based workshop to familiarize students with diversity index calculations. Finally, time will be set aside to go back to the bibliography to find out whether the patterns produced by the sequence have a biological reality, and whether they have been observed in nature (independent work and report).

Once they have completed the TD sequence, students will start setting up in situ community ecology experiments through an introduction to field ecology, in the form of autonomous projects. This includes a workshop 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 make it possible to place individuals(a fortiori communities) 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 zone, woods, old wall) on which they will carry out a floristic inventory. Following this, they will take several individuals of each species back to the laboratory to measure various functional traits. Once the measurements have been made, they will be able to calculate the various indices linked to the CSR strategy. The sequence will conclude with a report and an oral presentation. Other workshops are currently under development.

- setting up experimental ecology protocols (continued HLBE304 & 405)

- general knowledge of functional ecology (matter cycle)

- notions of population biology (r/K strategies)

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

- correct use of Excel (data entry and sorting)

Examination methods: 100% continuous assessment

1/4: TD report

1/4: oral presentation (individual mark)

1/4: experience report (team note)

1/4: final test

Knowledge

Definition of a community (history of the discipline's development; 2 approaches: Gleason and Clements)

Community description (notions of diversity, alpha, beta, gamma & 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)

How to be    

Autonomy     

Adaptation to field constraints (responsiveness)    

Group work

Know-how  

Fieldwork: conducting a protocol; identifying the plants & animals studied

Laboratory: measuring the main functional traits of plants & animals

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

Representation: graphing in Excel; introduction to graphing in R

Analyses: calculation of alpha beta gamma diversity indices with R

Deliverables: scientific report and bibliography; oral presentation