Spring 2022
This course will provide an introduction to the discipline of conservation biology. The first two-thirds of the course will focus on the biological aspects of the discipline. Topics covered will include patterns of biodiversity and extinction, causes of extinction and population declines, techniques used to restore populations, landscape level conservation planning, and the role of conservation in protecting ecosystem services. The final third will cover the practical aspects of implementing conservation actions and will include lectures on conservation economics and conservation law.
For the first 2 weeks of the spring 2022 semester this course will be taught online; after that we will meet in person, assuming UConn rules do not change. The course will meet synchronously, but lecture materials (videos of lecture materials, course notes, etc.) will be provided for student review before each class meeting. Class meetings will be used to ask questions, to go over any parts of the lecture videos that were confusing, to work through homework assignments, to discuss assigned readings, and to form study groups and work on the class project. All graded activities will be submitted online through HuskyCT. I have chosen to take this approach to ensure that no one feels compelled to come to class if they are sick, and to ensure a consistent approach throughout the semester no matter what the pandemic throws at us.
Basic course information
Credits: 3
Instructor: Chris Elphick (he/him)
Office hours: I am happy to meet via video conference; please email to set up a meeting. Tell me what you want to talk about and when you are available to meet.
Email: chris.elphick@uconn.edu; Twitter: @ssts
Teaching assistant: Nicholas Van Gilder (he/him)
Office hours: W 9:00 (in HuskyCT Collaborate) or by appointment
Email: nicholas.van_gilder@uconn.edu; Instagram: @n_v_g_
Lecture: M, W 2-3:15
Location: GW 002 (via Blackboard Collaborate in HuskyCT for first 2 weeks)
Contacting us outside class: We will work hard to respond to emails promptly, but you can help by being aware of ways to make it easier for us to find and follow up to your messages. In all emails to us, please include “EEB 2208E” in the subject line. I check email at the start and end of each work day (M-F) and will prioritize student messages with the goal of responding within 24 hours (except on weekends). I receive a high volume of email, though, and messages that are not readily identifiable or found via a simple search are easy to miss. Emails without a clear subject line, and especially those with a blank subject line, may get treated as SPAM and be deleted without being read. If you do not get a response within 48 hours, please do not hesitate to resend the message in case it was missed.
If you are struggling with the course, please do not hesitate to reach out for help at any time.
Pre-requisites: There are currently no prerequisites for the course, but it is aimed at students who are at least sophomores and have taken at least some biology in high school.
Textbook: I lecture primarily from my own notes, and there is no required reading for the course. Reading beyond the lecture material, however, will be helpful as I will expect you to know a range of examples for each phenomenon I describe. A textbook I’ve used in the past is Essentials of Conservation Biology (R.B. Primack, 6th Edition, Sinauer), which closely follows the sequence of my lectures. Another book (Sodhi and Ehrlich) that might be helpful is available as a free download here. The free textbook covers many of the topics I’ll cover in class, but is not as comprehensive as Primack’s book, and not as similar in its organization to the way that I have set up my lectures.
Web site: This site will serve as a syllabus and central resource for information about the course. We will also have a HuskyCT site where course materials will be collated by lecture, where homework can be turned in, where grades will be posted, and where you can post questions for me, the TA, or your classmates. The HuskyCT site will become available on the first day of class.
Research paper readings: In some lectures, I will provide supplemental readings from the primary research literature to augment the lectures. These readings will be the subject of class discussions and short graded responses. More information on when these discussions will occur and what is expected of you is given below.
Optional reading that might be helpful: If you are really interested in this topic, then you will be well served if you check out recent issues of the journal Conservation Biology (note that to read articles you will need to be connected to the UConn system).
Questions: Please ask lots of them! Class is much more interesting (for me and you) when people ask questions. The best way to ask questions is during class sessions or via the discussion board on HuskyCT, so that everyone can read the responses. If you prefer, you can send me questions over email, and I will post them anonymously, along with the answers.
Office hours: I do not have fixed office hours because they inevitably do not work for many students. But, I will usually be available in the classroom (or online) 15 minutes before and after each lecture. Please feel free to introduce yourself during these periods – the class is big and it is hard for me to get to know people otherwise. I am also happy to meet at other times by appointment. If you would like to meet, then email me, telling me (a) what you want to discuss (so I can prepare) and (b) when would be good times to meet (Mon, Tues, or Wed will usually be best). The TA is also available to answer questions by email, during office hours, and/or by appointment (see above for details).
Course objectives and expectations: My goal is to provide you with a basic understanding of the scientific field of conservation biology and the application of science to solving conservation problems. My primary goal is for you to learn and understand basic concepts and general ideas, although to get an A or a high B, you will need to know plenty of details too. I will expect you to know examples relating to each major concept, so that you can relate theory to practical, real-world situations. I will not expect you to memorize all of the minutia that I talk about; for example, I would not ask you exactly how many species have gone extinct in the last 500 years. But, I will expect you to have a solid understanding of the core information that would be required of you in a job in this field; for example, I would expect you to know whether the number of extinctions this century is likely to be closer to 2 or 20,000. The readings are intended to complement the lectures. My lectures will not repeat verbatim what is in those readings, and I will often use different examples or cover somewhat different topics. Both the lecture material and the readings, however, are important and could appear on exams.
Specific things that I hope you will learn are:
- to understand the basic issues that define the field of conservation biology;
- specific factual information about major issues in conservation biology;
- specific examples of all important concepts, problems, and solutions;
- to use general principles to think about ways to solve specific conservation problems;
- to extrapolate from examples I provide in class to other cases with similar characteristics (e.g., that I may ask about in exams!);
- to acknowledge scientific uncertainty when it exists, and to recognize when it hampers understanding and when it does not;
- to read scientific papers and understand the main points that they make;
- to interpret graphs, tables, and simple statistics presented in the scientific literature;
- to present scientific information to your peers in a format commonly used by scientists;
- to think about the work of others and provide constructive feedback.
These items relate to UConn’s Common Curriculum as follows:
| Topic of inquiry | Common curriculum objective | Learning objectives | Course assessments |
| TOI-4 | 1: Students will be able to investigate how human activities impact Earth systems | 1-9 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-4 | 2: Students will be able to examine how Earth systems affect human activities and well-being. | 1-9 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-4 | 3: Students will be able to assess how human-environment interactions are represented culturally, creatively, or artistically, and how these representations influence attitudes and behaviors. | 1-9 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-4 | 4: Students will be able to evaluate how public policies, legal frameworks, and/or other social systems affect environmental and social justice. | 1-10 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-4 | 5: Students will be able to articulate moral, ethical, and/or philosophical issues regarding the environment. | 1-9 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-6 | 1. Students will be able to explain and appropriately use basic scientific language and concepts. | 1-10 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
| TOI-6 | 3. Students will be able to solve problems described verbally, graphically, symbolically, or numerically | 1-10 | Homework, discussions, poster project, exams |
If you are just taking this course out of general interest, then hopefully it will provide you with a sense of how the biological sciences can be applied to protection of the natural world, and will give you a better understanding of the main issues in conservation biology. For those of you wishing to pursue a career in conservation biology, I hope that this course will give you a solid foundation on which to build with future courses (e.g., EEB 5310, EEB 5370). If this is your goal, I’d also encourage you to check out EEB’s joint BS/MS program in Biodiversity and Conservation Biology. There are also links to good sites for finding internships and jobs (short-term and permanent) in conservation biology at the bottom of this web page.
General student help
Student Health and Wellness – Mental Health: (860) 486-4705 (24 hours)
Dean of Students Office: (860) 486-3425
Center for Students with Disabilities
Alcohol, Other Substance Use, and Support
Academic rules and conduct
All students should be aware of the guidelines on academic integrity contained in the Student Code, which is available here.
Conservation biology in the news
Recent news articles that relate to the topics covered in this course will be posted on Twitter and can be viewed here. You do not need an account to view them, but if you use Twitter and want to contribute please do so using #eeb2208. If you want to get the class-related tweets that I post, follow me @ssts.
Important course documents
Grading information and class policies
Link to some poster design tips
Citation guidelines (for poster project)
Schedule of lectures and examinations (subject to change)
The schedule below describes the order in which we will cover material. Not every topic fits nicely into the time set aside for a lecture, so be prepared for us to start some topics a lecture early, and for others to take longer than the syllabus suggests. Snow days may also disrupt things, so don’t be surprised if the topic listing changes slightly. Should changes to the schedule be necessary I will send everyone in the class an announcement via HuskyCT.
Lectures will be pre-recorded and posted in HuskyCT. For each lecture there will be multiple short videos, both to break the information down into sections, and to make things easier for students with limited bandwidth. Each lecture also has a set of notes summarizing the material (linked to the topic titles in the syllabus below). Reading these notes before watching the videos should help you to follow the material. Some people like to print them out so that they can spend more time listening and less time writing. These outlines are not a substitute for watching the videos, making your own notes, or doing the assigned readings; you should not expect them to include everything covered in lectures (e.g., none of the graphics will be in the web notes – although I have left space on the page where you can add drawings).
My advice is to (a) look the notes over before watching the video, (b) make supplemental notes while watching, and then (c) come to class with questions about anything you do not understand (you can also post questions in the discussion board for the class). In exams, you will be expected to know about all the things covered in the videos, not just the summary information in the web notes. If you choose to rely only on the web notes it will likely affect your grade.
The symbol ** in the “Reading” column means that there is important reading from the primary literature that we will discuss in class (if there is no ** then the reading is still important, but will not be the subject of graded activities). Reading these papers is important as there will be short, graded, writing assignments for each one. I will also pick people in class to answer questions about them. We will post the papers on the HuskyCT site.
Weekly homework will be assigned on Wednesdays, with each assignment posted on HuskyCT. Your responses should be submitted via HuskyCT and are due by 8 pm on the Sunday after the homework was assigned (see homework column in the table below). Answers will be posted on HuskyCT.
In the syllabus I have will note special lectures or other events (in green) that will take place this semester and that are at least loosely connected to this course. Attendance at these lectures is not required, but the presentations should be of interest to anyone interested in conservation biology.
Because conservation biology is a fast-moving field, with the latest research constantly changing, my course notes are updated regularly. Links to the documents in the syllabus below will take you to the most recent version, but do not be surprised if they are updated a day or so before the relevant lecture.
| Lecture | Date | Topic | Background reading | Homework (due 8 pm, Sundays) | Supplemental information |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19 Jan | What is conservation biology? | Primack Ch 1 & 6 | A summary of what the course is about: Part 1 and Part 2 | |
| 2 | 24 Jan | Interpreting statistics (when there’s an agenda) | Sutherland et al. 2013 | Theory of the Stork | |
| 3 | 26 Jan | Forms of biological diversity | Primack Ch 2 | Hwk #1 (due 30 Jan) |
International Year of Biodiversity Ecosystem services |
| 4 | 31 Jan | Patterns of biodiversity | Primack Ch 3 | New species discoveries | |
| 5 | 2 Feb | Extinction rates | Primack Ch 7 | Hwk #2 (due 6 Feb) |
Thylacine video – all that’s left |
| 6 | 7 Feb | Patterns of extinction | Primack Ch 8 | A short extinction overview | |
| 7 | 9 Feb | Causes of population decline | Primack Ch 8
**Humphreys et al. 2019 |
Hwk #3 (due 13 Feb) |
1ST DISCUSSION TODAY!!! The fate of passenger pigeons IUCN Red List |
| 8 | 14 Feb | Habitat loss & degradation | Primack Ch 9: 175-196 | Another victim of habitat loss | |
| 9 | 16 Feb | Over-exploitation | Primack Ch 10: 215-227
**Orr et al. 2020 |
Hwk #4 (due 20 Feb) |
Bushmeat |
| 10 | 21 Feb | Invasive species | Primack Ch 10: 227-238
Watch Cane Toads |
IPANE | |
| 11 | 23 Feb | Disease | Primack Ch 10: 238-245
**Schelle et al. 2019 |
Hwk #5 (due 27 Feb) |
Chytrid video |
| 25 Feb | Poster info due via email before 4 pm today | ||||
| 12 | 28 Feb | Global change | Primack Ch 9: 197-216 | National Academies video, part 1 USFS climate change atlases for trees and birds Climate Change Time Machine |
|
| 13 | 2 Mar | Ecosystem services | pp. 1-24 MEA Summary for decision makers
**Fricke et al. 2022 |
Hwk #6 (due 6 Mar) |
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) |
| 7 Mar | Mid-term Exam | Study lectures 1-12 | |||
| 14 | 9 Mar | Small population conservation | Primack Ch 11 | Hwk #7 (due 13 Mar) |
|
| 14 Mar | Spring recess (no class) | ||||
| 16 Mar | Spring recess (no class) | ||||
| 15 | 21 Mar | Population viability analysis | Primack Ch 12 | Demos of PVA simulations in class today and/or Wednesday | |
| 16 | 23 Mar | Conservation genetics | Primack Ch 13 | Hwk #8 (due 27 Mar) | Frozen Ark Project POSTER PROSPECTUS DUE TODAY |
| 17 | 28 Mar | Ex situ conservation, release programs | Primack Ch 14 | Info on UConn’s endangered and extinct in the wild plants | |
| 18 | 30 Mar | Conservation reserves | Primack Ch 15 | Hwk #9 (due 3 Apr) | US Protected Areas |
| 19 | 4 Apr | Reserve networks | Primack Ch 16 | Poster design tips | |
| 20 | 6 Apr | Conservation in the matrix | Primack Ch 18 | Hwk #10 (due 10 Apr) | Flooding rice |
| 21 | 11 Apr | Management | Primack Ch 17 | Read about re-wilding | |
| 22 | 13 Apr | Habitat restoration | Primack: Ch 19 | Hwk #11 (due 17 Apr) | |
| 18 Apr | All posters due in HuskyCT by 2 pm (no class) | Start studying | Rubric | ||
| 20 Apr | Review posters (no class) | Primack: Ch 20 | Hwk #12 (due 24 Apr) | ||
|
23 Apr |
Peer review of posters due by 8 pm |
||||
| 23 | 25 Apr | Economics of conservation | Primack: Ch 4, 5
|
Instructor evaluations today | |
| 24 | 27 Apr | Conservation law and International legislation | Primack: Ch 21, 22 | Hwk #13 (due 1 May) |
Short video on wildlife trade |
| 29 Apr | Responses to peer questions about posters due by 8 pm | Study Guide | |||
| TBD | Final exam: confirm time and date here | Cumulative | Exam will cover material from entire course |
* Questions about final exam rescheduling should be directed to the Office of Student Services and Advocacy: (860) 486-3426. I am not allowed to consider rescheduling requests unless you already have approval from that office. Except in emergencies, rescheduling of other graded activities will be considered only if a written request is made at least one week in advance. Rescheduling is not guaranteed.
Please note that these lecture notes are intended for students in EEB 2208 at the University of Connecticut, and may not make sense in other contexts. If, however, you are not a UConn student and they are useful to you, please use them – but kindly let me know first if you intend to use them for anything more than your own on-line reading. If you find errors, please let me know that too.
Poster topics
The following topics have been taken: Please make note of your poster number as you will need it to submit your poster online.
- A1
Honors conversion projects
Occasionally honors students conduct additional projects to get honors credit for this class. Recently, those projects have involved developing web sites that provide information about conservation biology that relates to UConn or the state of Connecticut. I will post examples of those projects here as the information may be of interest to other students:
- Wetland plants of Connecticut
- Diseases that threaten Connecticut wildlife
- Freshwater fish conservation in Connecticut
- Invasive aquatic invertebrates in Connecticut
- Wolves in New England
- Bats of Connecticut
Important policies
Policy Against Discrimination, Harassment and Related Interpersonal Violence
The University is committed to maintaining an environment free of discrimination or discriminatory harassment directed toward any person or group within its community – students, employees, or visitors. Academic and professional excellence can flourish only when each member of our community is assured an atmosphere of mutual respect. All members of the University community are responsible for the maintenance of an academic and work environment in which people are free to learn and work without fear of discrimination or discriminatory harassment. In addition, inappropriate amorous relationships can undermine the University’s mission when those in positions of authority abuse or appear to abuse their authority. To that end, and in accordance with federal and state law, the University prohibits discrimination and discriminatory harassment, as well as inappropriate amorous relationships, and such behavior will be met with appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal from the University. Additionally, to protect the campus community, all non-confidential University employees (including faculty) are required to report sexual assaults, intimate partner violence, and/or stalking involving a student that they witness or are told about to the Office of Institutional Equity. The University takes all reports with the utmost seriousness. Please be aware that while the information you provide will remain private, it will not be confidential and will be shared with University officials who can help. More information is available at equity.uconn.edu and titleix.uconn.edu.
Information for Students with Disabilities
The University of Connecticut is committed to protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities and assuring that the learning environment is accessible. If you anticipate or experience physical or academic barriers based on disability or pregnancy, please let me know immediately so that we can discuss options. Students who require accommodations should contact the Center for Students with Disabilities, Wilbur Cross Building Room 204, (860) 486-2020 or http://csd.uconn.edu/.
Links to other key policy information.
Other information
For information about EEB’s Joint B.S./M.S. degree program in Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, click here.
For information about the Society for Conservation Biology, click here.
For information on jobs in conservation biology, click here or here.
For information on jobs in wildlife biology, click here.
For additional job information, compiled by the EEB department click here.