Biology: Animal Ecology

You will start with refreshing central concepts, such as basic concepts of evolution and (Darwinian) fitness, as well as proximate and ultimate explanations. The course focus on four themes:

Ecophysiology & migration: You will discuss the importance of organism's physiological and morphological adaptations and limitations, both at ecological and evolutionary time scales. Energy metabolism, migration, locomotion, orientation and navigation, as well as morphological adaptations are concerned.

Life history strategies. You will focus on questions about when, where, and how organisms optimally carry out life-cycle events, especially reproduction. A focal concept is "trade-offs", and research themes are e.g. demography, reaction norms, phenotypic plasticity, costs of reproduction, maternal effects, sex allocation, hormones, aging, immune defence and diseases.

Mating systems & sexual selection. You will learn about social mating systems, extra-pair fertilizations, parent-offspring and sexual conflicts, as well as theories of sexual selection and mate choice.

Signals & coevolution. This part deals with different types of communication, as well as coevolutionary processes within and between species (e.g., pollination, host-parasite coevolution, virulence).

Throughout the course you will practice scientific methodology and experimental design, providing you with basic training in being creative proposing hypotheses, as well as design studies to test hypotheses. You will also learn theoretical models and how to read scientific articles/texts critically but also to pick up the inspiring and thought-provoking aspects.

The theoretical part is examined as a 10 credits written exam. In addition there are two individual exercises. One literature project written as a mini-review on a specific subject in Animal Ecology. One exercise to conduct a study (planned and carried out in your mind, including results) that you present in a Power Point talk on a ‘real’ conference, where the participants are your fellow students and two teachers. You will use all the knowledge and skills you have trained in the course, including evolutionary thinking and scientific methodology.

Scientific methodology is integrated in other parts of the course, but contains also specific parts; experimental design, a literature project (mini-review), a ‘conference’ talk, and some short practical projects.

After taking this course, you will have the theoretical, scientific approach and ‘evolutionary thinking’ background that will be an ideal foundation for taking the more practical and methods-heavy courses Molecular Ecology and Evolution and Ornithology.

Animal Ecology course provides you with very good basic training for a continued career within academia conducting research on animals. But it also provides you with a number of generic skills that can be very useful also outside academia, such as at nature conservancy agencies or as high-school teacher.

Prerequisites

For admission to the course, knowledge corresponding to BIOR69 Population and Community Ecology 15 credits, or BIOR68 Aquatic Ecology 15 credits, is required. A degree of Bachelor of Science. English 6/English B.

Selection criteria

Seats are allocated according to: ECTS (HPAV): 100 %.

Tuition fees for non-EU/EEA citizens

Citizens of countries outside:

• The European Union (EU)
• The European Economic Area (EEA) and
• Switzerland

are required to pay tuition fees. You pay an instalment of the tuition fee in advance of each
semester.

Tuition fees, payments and exemptions

Full programme/course tuition fee: SEK 46,250
First payment: SEK 46,250

Convert currency – xe.com

Note that you may also need to pay an application fee, or provide proof of exemption.

Application fee

No tuition fees for citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland

There are no tuition fees for citizens of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.