Module BIOL3351: BEHAVIOURAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY

Department: BIOLOGICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

BIOL3351: BEHAVIOURAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To promote an appreciation of the evolutionary significance of behaviour and life-history.
• To conduct a supervised investigation of an area within Biological Sciences where knowledge obtained by laboratory experimentation, field work or literature search is important.

Content

• This course first describes the rationale that has led many evolutionary biologists to interpret both behaviour and life-history strategies as adaptations, and considers the different types of natural selection that may act on these traits.
• Throughout the course we highlight how evolutionary biologists have sought to identify competitively successful solutions to these problems and how these predictions compare to empirical observations.
• Forms of selection: Kin selection, Sexual selection, Balancing selection, Level of selection.
• Adaptive significance of behaviour: The adaptationist approach, Optimal foraging theory, Anti-predator stresses, Theory of games, Evolution of co-operation, Social behaviour, Mating strategies, molecular methods and sperm competition.
• Adaptive significance of life-history: Trade-offs, Reproductive allocation, reproductive strategies, Evolution of sex, parent-offspring conflict.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this module each student should know: That life-history and behaviour are shaped by a variety of forms of selections.
• How tensions between competing units with different selection pressures may be resolved (parent offspring conflict, reciprocal altruism).

• How to apply optimisation techniques, including game theory, to understand and predict behaviour.

• Extract, compile and review relevant scientific information from various sources and evaluate them critically.
• Acquire, interpret and critically analyse experimental and field data and present the results effectively.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Teaching and learning in this component is primarily through the means of lectures.
• Additionally, the students will be asked to study one aspect of behavioural and evolutionary ecology in depth.
• Following their study, they will be required to produce both a written report, and to make a short seminar presentation on their findings to the rest of the group.
• Knowledge will be summatively assessed through the use of a written report and a written examination and formatively assessed through an oral presentation.
• Recovery and interpretation of data will be summatively assessed by means of a written report from the case study and formatively assessed through an oral presentation.
• Understanding will be assessed by means of a written examination.
• Project component: Teaching and learning in this component is primarily through a directed literature search.
• Skills will be acquired through the searching, retrieval and presentation of relevant data.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Oral presentation.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University