Geography 323: Biogeography

Academic integrity

The University Student Conduct Code defines academic misconduct, which includes using unauthorized help on assignments and examinations, the use of sources without acknowledgment, and recording class without the express written permission of the instructor(s). Academic misconduct is prohibited at UO. I will report all suspected misconduct to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. If the Office finds a student has committed misconduct, consequences can include of the relevant assignment or exam, or of the course.

While unauthorized help and use of sources without citation is prohibited, learning together and citing sources is crucial! For each assignment, you may help each other by discussing the graphs and plots of data, but assignements should be written entirely on your own. Citation methods are provided in the writing guide for the lab assignments.

If at any point in the term you are unsure about whether a behavior aligns with academic integrity in our course, please contact me. I view student questions about academic integrity as a desire to act with integrity, so I welcome your questions.

Student experience surveys

The midway and end-of-term Student Experience Surveys occur on week 4 and week 10. I do not devote class time to these activities but I still highly value your input. These are important opportunities to provide feedback about your learning experiences. I value this feedback and am continually improving the course with students' responses in mind. The key parts of the survey are the open-ended questions where you share concrete, actionable feedback and about the teaching practices that stand out to you. Thank you for your thoughtful reflections!

Absences

• Lectures
  • Attendance will not be taken during lecture and you do not need to notify me if you will be missing lecture.
  • Lecture notes are posted on Canvas for some of the topics presented in class. However, the notes are not comprehensive. The note should help you understand which parts of the readings were emphasized in the class that you missed.
  • In cases of extensive absences, I do not reach out to you to remind you of due dates or implications for your grade. You are responsible to understand the deadlines for withdrawal and grade change (to P/NP, for instance), or how to petition for changes.
  • It is generally expected that class will meet unless the University is officially closed for inclement weather. If it becomes necessary to cancel class while the University remains open, this will be announced on Canvas and by email. Updates on inclement weather and closure are also communicated as described on the Inclement Weather webpage.
• Labs/discussion sections
  • If you cannot make it to your lab meeting for whatever reason the first option is to ask the teaching assistant if you can switch to a different one-hour section that fits with your schedule.
  • If you must skip the lab meeting (for example, illness), you will miss important information and data-gathering to complete the assignment. You will need to get this information from other students in the class or from the GE/teaching assistant during their office hours. Please make every effort to attend these sessions as the assignments have multiple steps and understanding the expectations and how to complete the assignment will be more clearer!

Artificial intelligence use

Use of artificial intelligence systems (e.g., ChatGPT, iA Writer, etc.) is allowed provided you note explicitly where in your work process you used AI (e.g. generating an outline or first draft) and which platform(s) you used. If you use text generated by an artificial intelligence system as part of an assignment submission, such as a paper, you must attribute the text to the AI-based system that is its source. For example, if you include text generated by ChatGTP, you must cite the source as follows:

ChatGPT. (Year, Month, Day of query). "Text of your query/prompt." Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/

Note that the assignments require discussing the original data sets that you generate in this course. Output from ChatGPT will not be able to discuss your dataset or interpret your graphs in a logical way.

Course grading

• Two exams, each covering about 1/2 of the course and each worth 25% of your total grade.
• Five lab reports for a total of 50% of your grade, weighting of the grades will increase with expectations and complexity of the lab. Each assignment's instructions will include a grading rubric. Also, see the document on general notes for writing lab reports (on Canvas).
• The five laboratory topics roughly correspond with current lecture topics.  Most labs involve two meetings and involve the collection and interpretation of data.
  • The island biogeography lab uses a simulation of the processes that lead to species richness on an island. 15%
  • The tree adaptations lab involves two walks around campus to observe traits of several tree tree species from throughout the world.  You are to create inventive hypotheses regarding the adaptive role of differences in related tree species. 5%
  • The virtual mega-transect lab meets during only one week and involves more independent work.  This involves comparing vegetation structure with climate variables across continental transects (using online resources). 10%
  • The spatial patterns lab addresses the distribution of individuals of a population, and is meant to demonstrate how certain processes leads to spatial patterns.  It also involves use of a statistical test to test hypotheses. 15%
  • The invasive species lab will consist of a film from Oregon Public Television.  Meeting on week 10 involves short presentations of a particular invasive species. The assignment will involve extra reading and thinking about invasive species. 5%. Lab 5 will be graded as credit/no credit: ALL questions must be answered to get credit!

Each lab will culminate in a lab report in which you are to answer specific questions. While it is helpful to discuss the labs amongst each other, and many labs are performed in groups, the lab reports are to be completed individually. Note the due dates for lab reports on the syllabus: lab reports are due at the lab meeting time. For each day late, grades will decrease by 10% of the total possible lab grade.

Read the lab before each lab meeting.

Required readings

• All readings will be supplied online through Canvas. You may wish to purchase the following book (no longer in print) if you can get a copy through Amazon or another seller:
  • Here Be Dragons, by Dennis McCarthy. Oxford University Press.
• Content of the lab sections will be on exams.
• Lab manuals and all readings are posted on canvas.uoregon.edu.

SCHEDULE

See Canvas Modules (one per week) to access the readings and lab materials.

• Bold indicates required readings.
• Italic indicates optional readings. Optional readings provide additional explanations, mostly redundant with other readings but reading these are a great way to get a thorough understand of a topic.
• Yellow highlight indicates assignment due dates.

References for Readings

• Cox, C. B., R. Ladle, and P. D. Moore. 2016. Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach. 10th edition. John Wiley & Sons.
• Darwin, C. 1859. The Origin of Species. P. F. Collier & Son.
• Flannery, T. 2015. The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples. Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
• Gavin, D. G. 2012. Biogeography. Pages 77-89 in J. P. Stoltman, editor. 21st Century Geography: A Reference Handbook. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
• Jackson, S. T. 2004. Quaternary biogeography: Linking biotic responses to environmental variability across timescales. Pages 47-65 in M. V. Lomolino and L. R. Heaney, editors. Frontiers of Biogeography: New Directions in the Geography of Nature. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA.
• Lomolino, M. V., B. R. Riddle, J. H. Brown, and R. J. Whittaker. 2010. Biogeography. Fourth Edition. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
• MacDonald, G. M. 2003. Biogeography: Space, Time and Life. Wiley, New York.
• McCarthy, D. 2011. Here Be Dragons: How the study of animal and plant distributions revolutionized our views of life and Earth. OUP Oxford.
• Molles, M. C. 1999. Ecology: Concepts and Applications. WCB/McGraw-Hill.
• Perry, D. A., R. Oren, and S. C. Hart. 2013. Forest Ecosystems. JHU Press.
• Pielou, E. C. 1974. Population and Community Ecology: Principles and Methods. Gordon and Breach.

• Interesting and potentially useful web links

Biogeography, once a secret delicacy enjoyed only by geniuses, must now be elevated from its current obscurity and placed alongside literature and history as an indispensable component of a truly enlightened education. —Dennis McCarthy, Here Be Dragons.