Schedule of readings

MACROECOLOGY (Biol 511) --  Spring 2017 

Course Calendar v1.1

Week	Date	Topic (N)	Primary Readings	Discussion Leaders
1	Jan 17, 19	The Macro of Macroecology	FOB: Preface; Macro: Ch1,2	fasmith
2	Jan 24, 26	Macroecology before Macroecology	2, 5; Macro: Ch3	Nick
3	Jan 31, Feb 2		7; Macro: Ch4	Lucius
4	Feb 7, 9		8, 10	Agathe
5	Feb 14, 16	DoM: allometry and body size	13, 14; Macro: Ch5	Mark
6	Feb 21, 23		18; Macro: Ch6	Laura
7	Feb 28, March 2	DoM: evolutionary dynamics	21,22	Lucius
8	March 7, 9		22, 20; Macro: Ch3	Lucius Agathe? Laura?
	March 12-17	SPRING BREAK
9	March 21, 23	DoM: abundance and distributions	26,27	Agathe
10	March 28, 30		29	Mark
11	April 4, 6	DoM: species diversity	33, 35; Macro: Ch9	Nick
12	April 11, 13		36, 38 and projects	Laura
13	April 18, 20		39; Macro: 10, 11	Lucius
14	April 25, 27	DoM: methodological advances	1,  (Macro book?)	Laura
16	May 9	Presentations! (papers due too)		all

Notes:

1.      Readings include the chapter introductions, and especially, the ‘blurbs’ written by invited specialists in the field. I don’t expect you to understand everything within each paper – identify what you don’t ‘get’, and bring it up for general discussion. Identifying at least one question for each paper will really help the group have lively and fruitful discussions. Ask yourself why this paper was chosen for the volume (many debates ensued about the choices!). The blurb writers were tasked with addressing this and did so with varying levels of success.

2.      One student will lead discussions for each section; you will provide a context for the discussion by reviewing the section introduction, googling the scientists responsible for the section introduction and the blurbs (so they can gain a perspective on the writers) and doing a brief literature search to see where the field has gone using key words they identify. These ‘resident experts’ will then summarize their findings for the rest of us and lead the discussion of the papers within their section. They will post this information prior to class on the course blog (macroecology.blogspot.com). And, the blog is where you will post comments as well. Doing so will help the discussion leaders since they can direct their comments towards issues multiple students had. We can discuss the timing of these posts/comments in class. Also, we won’t read ALL the papers in each section; we’ll decide which as we proceed …

3.      Please note that this schedule is really more of a guideline; I fully expect that it will change as our discussions evolve. Also, we will devote some class time to working on your projects.