Syllabus
1. Introduction, subject of ecology as scientific discipline, relations to conservative biology and applied environmental ecology, historical background.
2. Effects of environmental abiotic factors on an organism. Adaptations, tolerance, ecological niche, unitary and modular organisms.
3. Population characteristics and attributes, basic concepts of population dynamics.
4. Intrapopulation (density dependent) interactions, competition within population, asymmetry in competition, compensation in competition. Territorial behavior, self-thinnig in modular organisms, constant yield rule. "Negative" competition (Allee effect).
5. Interpopulation (between species) interactions. Overview, characteristics.
6. Interpopulation competition. Principle of competitive exclusion, character shift. Co-existence of competitors. Overview of basic models: Lotka-Volterra, Tilmann
7. Predation: co-evolution of predator and prey, specialization of predator. Predator's Functional response to prey density. Refugee. Concepts and overview of basic predation models (Lotka-Volterra, host-parasitiod, grazer-plants).
8. Mutualism
9. Life strategies, r and K, reproduction costs, slow-fast species
10. Island ecology
11. Metapopulation ecology
13. Community: concepts, attributes, structure
14. Species richness and diversity, how to measure it, what rules the diversity.
15. Ecological succession. Metapopulation and island ecology concepts.
16. Stability of communities/ecosystems. Differences between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
17. Energy flow in biosphere. Nutrients and other basic substances, availability, global cycles.
18. Biomes - overview