EFB 502 Ecology and Management of Invasive Species

COURSE SYLLABUS – Fall 2009

INSTRUCTOR: DR DYLAN PARRY

Office: 109 Illick Hall

Phone: 470-6753

E-mail: dparry@esf.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 10:30-12:30

or e-mail or talk to me before / after class for appt.

Required Book: Invasion Ecology – Lockwood, Hoopes & Marchetti (2007)

FYI: Other related books:

Nature Out of Place – Van Driesche and Van Driesche (2000)

Alien Invasions – Devine (1998)

Tinkering with Eden – Todd (2001)

The Ecology of Invasions by Animal and Plants – Elton (1958)

Some Electronic Resources:

http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/

http://www.fs.fed.us/invasivespecies/

http://nas.er.usgs.gov/

Some key references (PDF’s)

Major Topics

1. Introduction and overview of invasions

2. The effects of invasives at the ecosystem level

3. The stepwise process of invasion

4. Community susceptibility or resistance to invasion

5. Identifying the characteristics of successful invaders

6. The genetics and evolution of invasive species

7. Hybridization: genetic pollution and insidious invasions

8. Invasions and global change: synergistic?

9. Prevention – minimizing invasions through policy and law

10. Management - controlling established invasives: eradication or mitigation?

11. Biological control – the good….

12. Biological control – …. the bad, and the ugly

13. Predictive models

14. Where we are and where we want to be: Evaluating the current state of knowledge and what the future may hold

LINK TO LECTURE SEQUENCE AND READINGS

GRADING:

Midterm 15%

Class Participation: 15%

Literature reviews (Undergraduates ) (30%)

Paper 1 (Due Oct. 20)

Assignment Guidelines

- Grading Rubric, Suggestions

-How to read scientific literature

Paper 2 (Due Dec. 08)

Or Position Paper (Graduate Students) (30%)

Due Dec. 01/2009

Project 25%

Group List and E-mails

FINAL 15%

Total 100%

PREREQUISITES: I assume that all students have solid grounding in fundamental ecological and evolutionary principles (i.e., EFB-311, EFB-320 or similar level courses)

PROJECT: Controlling the proliferation of invasive species requires a greater degree of cooperation and public input than most scientific endeavors. As such, communication and outreach to the general public is critical.

Your challenge is to develop a campaign to educate the public on an invasive species or suite of species that are important or are likely to become important. There are several catches to this task.

1. First, I would like you to choose a problem that is of concern (or soon will be) in New York State (no shortage of issues!!).

2. Secondly, you can not use a species or system that you have already conducted research on (i.e., if you are a graduate student working on purple loosestrife, you may not design a campaign around that species).

3. Third, you will be developing your presentation in teams of 3 (undergraduates) or individually (graduate students). I will randomly select the teams to facilitate equal participation.

You have nearly complete freedom to choose the format of your campaign. It could be a poster, brochure, web site, video…….. essentially any type of media that can communicate your message to the general public (no PowerPoint lecture – this is not an effective tool for most audiences). At the end of the semester, each pair of students will present / demonstrate their campaign and will be evaluated by myself and other classmates on the effectiveness of the message. This will give you a unique opportunity to be creative in a format you are comfortable with.