BOTANY 877: COMMUNITIES & ECOSYSTEMS
Physiological, population, community, and ecosystems
studies of the major plant associations of the world.

Instructor: Bruce Haines, 542-1837, e-mail haines@dogwood.botany.uga.edu
Grad. Asst: Jason Piluk, rm 3505, 542-1837
Period 1: 7:50-8:40 Room 2507

COURSE SUMMARY -

Characteristics of the worlds' nine major climatic types will be the initial focus. Secondly, the structural and physiological adaptations of plants to each of these climatic regimes will be examined. Population, community, and ecosystems proprties will be explored across the climatic gradients from the equator to the poles. Terrestrial and aquatic habitats will be investigated. Heinrich Walter's book, "Vegetation of the Earth and Ecological Systems of the Goe-biosphere" will serve as the starting point.
The course will be organized as a discussion seminar. Extensive reading of original research papers and synthesis of works will be required. Students will lead the discussion on a rotational basis. The instructor will provide color slides of plants and plant communities for students use in their discussions. Data from original papers will be added to global data sets accumulated by previous BOT877 classes. Data will be subjected to multi-variate analyses in search of global trends.

OBJECTIVES -

To determine trends in plant responses to global gradients;
To develop testable hypotheses to explain observed trends;
To integrate the first two objectives into planning research for global change.

PROPOSED SCHEDULE -

Week    0   W   Self Introductions and Career Goals Week
                   T    Classification of ecological systems
                   F    Climate Diagrams
            1    M    ZB I. Equatorial Diurnal..Forest
                   T    ZB II. Trop. Sum. Rain. Decid. For.
                  W    ZB III Sub-Trop. Deserts
                  T     ZB IV Winter Rain region
                  F     ZB V. Warm-Temp. humid
            2   M    Martin Luther King Holiday
                  T     ZB VI Temperate-Nemoral climate
                  W    ZB VII. Arid-temp. continental
                  T     ZB VIII. Cold Temp., Boreal
                  F     ZB IX. Arctic-including antarctic
            3    M    Plant Ecophys. Overviews: Water
                  T     (cont.) Water
                  W    (cont.) Carbon
                  T     (cont.) Soils & Mineral Nutrition
                  F     Class Project Data Base
            4    M    Class Project Data entry day -all of us
                  T     Plant demogr./popul. Overview
                  W    Demogr./popul. Papers
                  T     Demog./Popul. papers
                  F     Species Diversity: Overview
            5    M    Species Diversity papers
                  T     Class project data entry day - all of us
                  W    Midterm exam
                  T     Species Diversity papers
                  F     Diversity-Stability papers
            6   M     Diversity-Stability (cont.)
                  T     Diversity-Stability (cont.)
                  W    Succession: Concepts & Theory
                 T     Succession: Causes of Variety
                  F     Succession: Gap dynamics
           7     M    Succession: Simulation models
                  T     Succession:
                  W    Succession-long term
                  T     Succession-long term , Class project
                  F     Multivar. Stat., Success.
           8    M     Multivar. Stat., Cycles
                  T     Multivar. Stat.
                  W    Nutrient Cycle
                  T     Nutrient cycling
                  F     Nutr. Cycl., Production
           9     M    Production
                  T     Catch up day and class project
                  W    Global Change
                  T     Global Change
                  F     Global Change
          10    M, T and W   Global Change
          11            Mar Final Exam

ADMINISTRATIVE -

Evaluation Scheme -
1. Discussion leading .......................................................... 10%
2. Class project participation -data gathering, entry ............. 10%
3. Midterm examination ...................................................... 25%
4. Final Exam ( 20% on 2nd half info., 15% comprehensive) 35%
5. Class Project report ....................................................... 20%

Discussion leading -
Participants will take turns leading the discussion of course materials. Tentative dates and names of discussion leaders are indicated above. Assignments of papers will be made at least 3 class days in advance of discussion day. Class project. This class will extract data from the literature and add the data into the data base accumulated by previous class groups. The instructors will find the papers ( this avoids duplicated effort) and make papers available to participants. Each participant will be responsible for 10 ecophysiology papers and 5 production -element cycling papers.

Midterm examination -
What have we learned to date? Examples of pervious exams are available.

Final exam -
Material since previous exam, and some comprehensive questions.

Class Project Report -
Data accumulated by this class and by previous classes will be subjected to statistical analyses to search for global scale trends. Your efforts will be written up as a "mini-research paper" in the editorial format of Ecology /Ecological Monographs/ Ecological Applications... We suggest that you write this paper on the installment plan: as the title page, introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, literature cited, tables, figures become available, type them into your word processor file. Plan ahead. Avoid the rush at the end of the quarter. The upper limit is 15 double spaced typed pages exclusive of figures and tables.

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