Welcome to Biol 402: Aquatic Ecology 2019!
Some information before we get started:
FIELD TRIP: We have an overnight field trip in this course! We use the field trip to learn lake sampling methods, and to collect samples that you will analyze in labs for the rest of the term. The field trip will be Sept 30 - Oct 1st. Expenses are covered by the course, and the field trip is mandatory. We will be hiking and going on small boats, so plan to have an amazing time, and to get a little dirty and wet! We will stay in a hostel.
Check this website for updates and details.
TEXT BOOK: You are expected to do the reading, and the course uses a textbook that is a standard aquatic ecology text: Ecology of Freshwaters: Earth's Bloodstream by Brian Moss (2018). Please do not use an earlier edition. The book is onsale at the bookstore, and available for online reading through the UBC library.
Course documents:
Syllabus 2019
Guidelines for Research Papers
Materials for first lab:
For the first lab, we will become oriented with the lab space that we will use the rest of the term. This includes familiarizing ourselves with the equipment to identify species in the samples we collect. To start us off, we will be using microscopes to ID zooplankton!
Here are some helpful links to help with zooplankton ID:
The paper I referred to in lab about cladoceran / copepod competition: O'Brien and Luecke 2011
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Additionally, we will also have a brief introduction on the programming language, R. (Links to an external site.)
For the entirety of the course, we will be using R to perform statistical analyses and create figures that you will use for your lab assignments, quizzes, and final report.
You can download R here: https://cran.r-project.org/ (Links to an external site.)
We also recommend that you install RStudio, an IDE for R: https://www.rstudio.com/ (Links to an external site.)
Once you have installed R and RStudio, we will go over a quick tutorial in class following the "Installing R" document on the course page. Then, for the remainder of the time or on your own, I highly recommend installing the `swirl` package (Links to an external site.) and going through the interactive tutorials. This will help you get better acquainted with the R syntax, which will benefit you throughout the course.
Brooks and Dodson assignment for Sept 12 2019
Some information before we get started:
FIELD TRIP: We have an overnight field trip in this course! We use the field trip to learn lake sampling methods, and to collect samples that you will analyze in labs for the rest of the term. The field trip will be Sept 30 - Oct 1st. Expenses are covered by the course, and the field trip is mandatory. We will be hiking and going on small boats, so plan to have an amazing time, and to get a little dirty and wet! We will stay in a hostel.
Check this website for updates and details.
TEXT BOOK: You are expected to do the reading, and the course uses a textbook that is a standard aquatic ecology text: Ecology of Freshwaters: Earth's Bloodstream by Brian Moss (2018). Please do not use an earlier edition. The book is onsale at the bookstore, and available for online reading through the UBC library.
Course documents:
Syllabus 2019
Guidelines for Research Papers
Materials for first lab:
For the first lab, we will become oriented with the lab space that we will use the rest of the term. This includes familiarizing ourselves with the equipment to identify species in the samples we collect. To start us off, we will be using microscopes to ID zooplankton!
Here are some helpful links to help with zooplankton ID:
- copepods of British Columbia (Links to an external site.)
- An image-based key to the zooplankton of North America (Links to an external site.)
- Plankton Web (Links to an external site.)
The paper I referred to in lab about cladoceran / copepod competition: O'Brien and Luecke 2011
--------------
Additionally, we will also have a brief introduction on the programming language, R. (Links to an external site.)
For the entirety of the course, we will be using R to perform statistical analyses and create figures that you will use for your lab assignments, quizzes, and final report.
You can download R here: https://cran.r-project.org/ (Links to an external site.)
We also recommend that you install RStudio, an IDE for R: https://www.rstudio.com/ (Links to an external site.)
Once you have installed R and RStudio, we will go over a quick tutorial in class following the "Installing R" document on the course page. Then, for the remainder of the time or on your own, I highly recommend installing the `swirl` package (Links to an external site.) and going through the interactive tutorials. This will help you get better acquainted with the R syntax, which will benefit you throughout the course.
Brooks and Dodson assignment for Sept 12 2019