6 EC
Semester 1, period 2
5224GLEB6Y
| Owner | Master Biological Sciences |
| Coordinator | W.D. Kissling |
| Part of | Master Biological Sciences, track Ecology and Evolution, year 1Master Biological Sciences, track General Biology, year 1 |
Biodiversity contributes to ecosystem functioning and is of fundamental importance for human well-being. Moreover, knowledge about biodiversity and its spatial (global) distribution is essential for understanding the origin of biodiversity, for reporting and managing biodiversity change, and for contributing to the vision that biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people. With this course, we want to contribute to educating a new generation of ecologists who are equipped with quantitative skills to address questions in global ecology and biodiversity. We particularly focus on handling of large biodiversity and environmental datasets, spatial biodiversity modelling, species distribution modelling, an introduction to remote sensing, and general tools for spatial ecological data analysis. The students will develop their own research project in global ecology and biodiversity and combine ecological and environmental data using R, Microsoft Excel/Access, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other quantitative tools. The statistical modelling and prediction of species potential distributions and biodiversity in geographic space is of particular focus.
Will be provided during the course
R software with various packages
ArcGIS
Micrososft Excel and Access
Other tools
Powerpoint presentations and other materials will be provided
Students will obtain advanced knowledge of global ecology and how life and ecosystems are distributed across our planet. Students will mostly work at the interface of geo-informatics and macroecology and focus on global-scale analyses of biodiversity patterns and underlying drivers of change in these patterns. This includes species distribution modelling, community ecology, spatial statistics, and spatial modelling of biodiversity. We will provide training through lectures and computer practical exercises (ArcGIS, R). For a majority of the course, students will work on an independent research project that addresses questions related to species distributions or spatial biodiversity patterns. The project will include handling large biodiversity and environmental datasets, and we will train students to organize, manipulate and interpret these data.
At the end of the course, students are able to:
Activity | Hours | |
Computerpracticum | 88 | |
Hoorcollege | 20 | |
Laptopcollege | 20 | |
Project | 16 | |
Werkcollege | 16 | |
Self study | 8 | |
Total | 168 | (6 EC x 28 uur) |
The programme does not have requirements concerning attendance (OER-B).
Additional requirements for this course:
Absence needs to be communicated to the course coordinator.
| Item and weight | Details |
|
Final grade |
Research project (40%)
- Quality
- Theoretical knowledge
- Technical Skills
- Independence/initiative
- Original contribution
- Working attitude
- Accuracy
- Cooperation with others
Data management & curation (10%)
- Completeness
- Consistent structure
- Error free
- Good meta data
Oral presentation (10%)
- Contents
- Clarity of presentation
- Discussion
Written report (40%)
- Context
- Scientific Quality
- Use of literature
- Structure and language
- Lay-out
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
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The schedule for this course is published on DataNose.