Week 04

Overview

In lecture this week, we will learn how to incorporate in biological reality in the form of spatial structure. We will begin with an overview of a simple model of meta-population dynamics, in which we track the occupancy of different connected patches on a landscape. We will go over the empirical applications of meta-population thinking, including its relevance to models of disease spread.

The Weekly Activity is a review of some of the concepts we have covered in class so far, including a case study about the invasion of Burmese Pythons in the Florida Everglades. This week, students are also asked to generate a list of potential communities to focus on for the semester project. Details of that activity are available at this link.

We will also spend some time this week focused on the semester project - the goal for this week is to explore potential ecological communities that students can work on. We will end the week with in-class small group discussions about the semester project communities

This week’s cover image is from the Red Cockaded Woodpecker page on AllAboutBirds.