Faculty of Science

Objectives

To study the physical and biological factors of the environment that affect plants and animals.

Contents

Concept of ecology; habitat and niche; comparative exclusion principle and coexistence-resource partitioning; the physical and biotic environments; ecological features of animal and plant habitats; ecosystems; bioenergetic approach to the study of plant and animal distribution and abundance in natural ecosystems – the relationship of plants and animals and their physical and biotic environment (food chain; trophic relationships; producers; consumers and decomposers); pyramids of numbers; pyramids of biomass and pyramid of energy; energy flow in ecosystems – primary production; secondary production; efficiencies in ecology; the efficiency of energy transfer in ecosystems; nutrient cycles (hydrological, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles); Population ecology – density; dispersal and dispersion; intraspecific competition; interspecific competition and interactions; population regulation; The community concept – characteristics; species diversity and succession. Factors threatening the survival of endangered plants and animals- habitat destruction; pollution; deforestation; desertification; steps to conserve the endangered species; ecosystems and the biosphere and the necessity for their sustainable exploitation.

Both field work with local examples and laboratory work are part of this course.