6 EC
Semester 1, period 2
5042BIGC6Y
Biodiversity contributes to the proper functioning of ecosystems and is essential for a sustainable future of our earth. It also contributes to food production, biotechnology, and medicine, and is therefore of fundamental importance for our human well-being. However, biodiversity has changed dramatically, both in the geological past as well as more recently due to the impacts of modern humans. The resulting environmental changes (both natural and human-driven) take place at different spatial and temporal scales, but the mechanisms and processes driving biodiversity change are often poorly understood. For instance, species and ecosystems respond to changing environmental factors such as climate, soil, and land use, resulting in a complexity of biotic and abiotic interactions. This makes an understanding and the prediction of future biodiversity changes extremely challenging. To understand the effects of future global change on biodiversity, insights from past and currently observed changes, experiments, biological theory and modelling are relevant to predict how and why the biosphere changes. This encompasses many different disciplines, including paleoecology, climate change biology, biogeography, molecular ecology, and climatology. The course concentrates on patterns and processes of biological diversity at species, population and ecosystem levels, and covers biodiversity (past, current and future patterns), threats and ongoing changes, biogeography, biodiversity data, and past, recent and future global change). Course material will mainly be covered by lectures and reading material. In addition, the management of data and visualization of biodiversity in space and time is performed with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The course therefore allows students to get up-to-date with knowledge and skills in biodiversity and global change research of the twenty-first century.
No specific book is need. Reading material will be provided during the course.
Powerpoint presentations and other materials will be provided via Canvas.
| Lectures & werkcolleges | 40% |
| Practical | 25% |
| Self study (incl. literature reading, presentation and exam preparation) | 35% |
|
Activity |
Number of hours |
| Lectures |
16 |
|
Exams |
3 |
|
Practicals |
36 |
|
Question hours |
3 |
|
Self-study |
95 |
Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):
Additional requirements for this course:
Attendance at lectures is highly recommended because the material from the lectures will form the basis for the exams. Knowing the material from the lectures is imperative to pass the course, but additional readings are required to perform excellent.
Participitation in all parts of the computer practicum is mandatory/obligatory (from Teaching and Examination Regulations).
Any absence (e.g. due to illness or special family circumstances) has to be discussed with the course organizer BEFORE the obligatory course parts take place and will involve additional homework to compensate for the parts that were not attended.
| Item and weight | Details |
|
Final grade | |
|
1 (100%) Deeltoets 1 |
The exam part will exist of three partial exams, each of 1 hour.
For at least twenty working days after the announcement of the results of a written examination, the student can, on request, inspect his/her assessed work, the questions and assignments set, as well as the standards applied for marking. The place and time will be announced via Blackboard (from Teaching and Examination Regulations).
The computer practicum will be used to assess the application and comprehension level of students, especially in terms of handling and visualizing biodiversity data as well as presenting and summarizing the results of a project. Two assessments will be performed for the computer practicum, one based on daily exercises and the other one based on a poster presentation at the end.
The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl
| Weeknummer | Onderwerpen | Studiestof |
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | ||
| 7 | ||
| 8 |
Maximum of 45 students. The lectures, presentations and written assignments in this course will be in English. The teaching is also in English. The course requires that the student has his/her own laptop (laptop college) with a Windows operating system. ArcGIS has to be installed by the student using a 1-year (free) student license (http://www.gis-studio.nl/index.php?page=software).