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Advanced concepts in population ecology, especially those most relevant to the New Zealand region and to the conservation of the New Zealand biota. Topics include life history tradeoffs, dispersal and metapopulations, species interactions, population regulation, population modelling, management of populations, and issues for species conservation in New Zealand.
The course teaches advanced principles of population ecology and practical ecology skills in a New Zealand context. The course covers population ecology (the study of single species, including their interactions with other species), and its applications to conservation. We cover a range of current topics, illustrated with NZ examples. We also emphasise practical skills with the field trip and assessment focused on this. Additional reading of recent books and scientific papers is an essential complement to the lectures. Basic ecological background is assumed; if you feel that you are missing some assumed background, see the reference materials listed below or talk to the lecturers.
As a student in this course, I will develop the ability to:Understand current topics in population ecology and their application to conservation (assessment: final exam)Develop practical skills including species identification, experimental design, data analysis (assessment: field trip lab test; field trip short report)Improve scientific communication skills, especially report writing and use of the literature (assessment: field trip short report)Conduct field work safely (field trip preparation and conduct)Transferable Skills Register / Pūkenga NgaioAs a student in this course, I will develop the following skills:Discovery, synthesis and interpretation of information. Combining information from lectures, course readings, the literature, and field trip in discussions on the field trip and in course assessment.Formation of hypotheses and explanations. The field trip will include discussions of results as they come in, to develop hypotheses that can be expanded on in your short field trip report.Conducting safe field work in hazardous outdoor environments. You will be given forms before the field trip which you will use to identify, eliminate, mitigate or minimize hazards.Knowledge of field sampling methods in terrestrial ecology, and plant and animal identification We will practice a range of field methods; the field trip lab test will assess identification skills.Data analysis and interpretation. Initial analysis of field trip data will be run on the trip, and appropriate further analysis methods discussed on site for you to use in your short reports.Writing a report in scientific format using text and graphs. Initial graphs will be discussed on the field trip, and you will be given information about style, good graph design etc for use in your short reports.
BIOL209 and either (1) BIOL270 or (2) BIOL274 and BIOL275
Students must attend one activity from each section.
**********There is only ONE field trip. It will run from Saturday 28th - Tuesday 31st March 2026.**********Feedback from Course SurveysThe last course survey was in 2023.Standard questions 2023(n = 28, 88%)Q1 - The materials provided helped me to understand what was required tosucceed in this course. 4.4Q2 - The organisation of this course helped me learn. 4.3Q3 - I found the workload was appropriate to the level of the course. 4.5Q4 - I found the assessments appropriate for the course. 4.4Q5 - Where I sought feedback on my assessments, I found it helpful. 4.1Here are some detailed points raised in it, with our responses.1. There should be an option to sit the exam soon after the course work finishes as you forget most of the stuff by the time of midyear exams.R:This is not as simple as it seems. Only the lectures finish in Term 1. The field trip is in the April break, which produces data for the field trip writeup (20% of the assessment) with tutorials in the first two weeks of term 2 and the project due in the third week of Term 2. So the gap between finishing course work and the start of the exam break in June is only three weeks. Since there would be timetabling problems about finding a time to run an exam towards the end of Term 2, we have left the final exam in the June break. But we have introduced an online lecture test at end of Term 1 to get some of the lecture assessment out of the way while the material is still fresh.2. Fantastic field trip and array of investigations was very beneficial. The short report was a good test for writing skills in comparison to some other longer report writing in other courses.R:Thanks for the comment. The short report is very concise (900 words), to keep the workloadappropriate for a 15 point course, but note that you have to edit the text carefully to fit yourarguments into that short space. Allow some time for editing, and use the tutorials (see nextcomment).3. Tutorial sessions were really helpful for the report writing. In particular I found this particularly useful for help with the statistics.R:Glad that worked out, we put those tutorials in place (in response to earlier feedback), specifically to help with stats and writing in the report.
Sara Kross
Maartin Strauss
Kim Doherty
Note: Biology policy says that to pass the course you need a mark of at least 50% overall, AND at least a 40% average across the interm work (online lecture test, lab test, and short report) and at least a 40% average in the final exam (see departmental policies below for more detail).
Instead of a textbook, we will make specific recent research articles available through Learn. For background, we recommend the current BIOL 270 text: Smith & Smith (2015) Elements of Ecology (9th edition) or the previous text for BIOL270, Begon, Howarth & Townsend (2014) Essentials of ecology 4th edition (copies in the UC libraries).
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Domestic fee $1,272.00
International fee $6,006.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see School of Biological Sciences .