The course will provide an introduction to conservation issues, concentrating on their fundamental biological basis, and the role of scientific research in conservation management.
1. The goals of conservation
- Threats to biodiversity: Habitat destruction, degradation and fragmentation, Invasive species, Exploitation.
- What are we trying to protect? Genes, Species, Communities, Habitats, Regions, Ecosystem services.
- How do we measure our success or failure? Monitoring schemes and threat categories.
2. The biological basis of conservation
- Ecological and behavioural (social) effects of habitat change: metapopulation dynamics, patch connectivity, environmental and demographic stochasticity, Allee and rescue effects.
- The (in situ and ex situ) conservation of single gene pools: genetic and behavioural aspects of inbreeding and genetic erosion, evolution after man made changes, how much genetic variation is needed, artificial breeding, reintroduction and translocation programs, genetic management tools.
- The conservation of species assemblages: Island biology revisited (area, edge effect and distance), why island biotas are special and vulnerable, management of rich and poor assemblages of species, invasive species and their devastating effects.
- Taking long term stability into account: effects of climate and global change, dynamic food-web interactions, population cycles.
3. Practical conservation
- The need for scientific information for management strategies: Trade-offs between collecting data and active management.
- How to preserve biodiversity? The need for shortcuts: keystone species, flagship species, indicator species, indicator groups, the higher-taxon approach, abiotic indicators (the landscape approach).
- Practical harvesting issues in animals and plants: Density-dependence and trophic interactions, migration patterns, harvesting models, disease problems, optimal yield and the tragedy of the commons.
- Human activities and how to select nature reserves and management areas – the need for making priorities: the hot-spot of richness approach, the hot-spot of endemism approach, the complementarity approach and the ecosystem approach.
Prerequisites
It is recommended that the student has taken courses covering Biodiversity, Population Biology and Mathematical Biology, or equivalent.
Application procedure
Self Service at KUnet
Learning outcomes
This course has a triple objective.
- First, to offer a broad conceptually orientated overview of current key issues in conservation biology and to train students in the application of these concepts to practical conservation.
- Second, to give students the essential background to be successful in BSc-level jobs in management, administration, and the dissemination of knowledge on Biodiversity and Conservation.
- Third, to give those students that continue for the "international nature management" stream the necessary entry-level for advanced courses on more specific issues.
General qualifications
The student will gain an understanding of the issues underlying conservation, how scientific research can be used to address these issues, and the necessity of trade-offs and short-cuts to do this effectively.
Knowledge:
By completing the course the student can:
- Explain the intrinsic value of conservation of species, groups of species and high-biodiversity areas and of the economic realities constraining practical conservation.
- Integrate basic knowledge from population ecology, behavioural biology, population genetics, evolutionary biology and macroecology in questions of practical conservation.
- Provide a general overview of the population biology of invasive species, of the traits that these species have in common, and of the typical ways in which they threaten native biodiversity.
- Relate the key variables for optimal harvesting of economically important populations of wild animals and plants.
Skills:
- Make qualified contributions to the “priority-driven” conservation management of single species and species assemblages (guilds & communities), taking into account issues of habitat fragmentation, genetic erosion, reproductive value of cohorts and individuals, controlled breeding, reintroduction, and climate change.
- Critically assess information from monitoring schemes and similar biodiversity databases for the purpose of conservation of species, groups of species or entire species assemblages of areas.
- Explain the rationale behind national, European and global conservation initiatives and the impact that they have, and of the difficulties that they face.
- Distinguish between scientific results reported in the primary literature and in general textbooks and reports.
Competences:
By completing the course the student can:
- Critically assess the appropriateness of statistical methods and interpretations in the scientific literature.
- Explain and evaluate the relative value of experiments, theoretical concepts and the comparative analysis of literature data.
- Provide and outline an overview of the field of Conservation and formulate a qualified opinion on the discipline to non-biologists.
Files/Documents
ISCED Categories
Biologie
Biotechnologie
Ecologie
Conservatie en milieumanagement