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EFB
502 Ecology and Management of Invasive Species
COURSE
SYLLABUS – Fall 2008
INSTRUCTOR: DR DYLAN PARRY
 Office: 109 Illick
Hall
Phone: 470-6753
E-mail: dparry@esf.edu
Office Hours:
Tuesday 9:30-12:00
or e-mail or talk to me before / after class for
appt.
Required
Book: Invasion
Ecology – Lockwood, Hoopes & Marchetti (2007)
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 Sept. 23)
Paper
2 (Due Nov. 13)
Paper
3 (Due Dec. 5) Optional – Bonus 5%
Grading
Rubric, Suggestions
How
to read scientific literature
Or Position Paper (Graduate Students) (30%)
Topics
and Guidelines Due Nov. 18
Project 20%
Group List
and E-mails
Presentation Dates
Dec. 2 (groups 1, 3, 5, 8, 9) and Wren, Sirois
Dec. 4 (groups 2, 4, 6, 7) and Kummer, Robidee, Mishler
Dec. 11 (Duffy, Farrell, Conrad, Aronson)
Final:
20% (take home posted Dec. 2, Due Dec 11)
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.
- 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!!).
- 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).
- 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.
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