Undergraduate Course: Conservation Science (ECSC10036)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Conservation Science is an honours course combining biological and social science perspectives on the field of conservation. The course is a 20-credit course demanding significant student investment into the coursework of 200 hours: lectures/discussions/workshops (3 hour sessions each week), preparation and readings (at least 3 hours per week), group learning (3 hours per week), assignment preparation (60 hours), field course (three days) and external reading and engagement (20 hours). The course does not have any pre-requisites, but students are expected to have a background in ecology or biological sciences and to be comfortable reading and interpreting the scientific and social science literature and understanding basic applied statistics and mathematics. |
| Course description |
Week 1 Introduction to Conservation Science
Week 2 Patterns of biodiversity
Week 3 Why do we conserve biodiversity?
Week 4 Background population ecology for conservation
Week 5 Protected areas
Week 6 Conservation Science Conference
Week 7 Threats to biodiversity
Week 8 People-focused conservation
** week 8 - Opinion Piece due 12noon Friday**
Week 9 Conservation in practice
** week 11 - POSTnote due 12noon Friday**
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students can take EITHER Conservation Science OR Conservation and Management of Natural Populations (SBS). Please note GeoSciences PT's cannot directly enroll students on to SBS courses. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Successful completion of introductory ecology or biology courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2020/21, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 37 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 30,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Poster 15%
Skills being assessed: Visual communication skills, poster design, public speaking, interpretation of the scientific literature, development of an informed scientific opinion
Students will make a pdf poster introducing their chosen hot issue in conservation science to the class in our mid-term conservation conference. The poster should introduce the issue in question, explain the science behind the topic and the conservation approach required or being undertaken. The presentation should be modelled on a poster for a scientific conference such as the British Ecological Society Conference.
Opinion piece 60%
Skills being assessed: Scientific communication and writing, interpretation of the scientific literature, development of an informed scientific opinion
The students will be asked to write a 2000-word fully-referenced opinion piece in the format appropriate for a scientific journal giving a detailed yet concisely written description of their chosen hot issue in conservation science (the same topic on which they are making their posters). The students can choose to format this piece in the style appropriate for a scientific conservation journal of their choice using the author guidelines indicated on the journal¿s website (Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Journal of Applied Ecology, etc.).
POSTnote 25%
Skills being assessed: Public/policy communication, distillation of the scientific literature, summary of scientific information, engagement with policy/public audiences, development of a data visualization using quantitative skills
As a final assignment, students will be asked to produce a four-page up to 1500-word POSTnote summary with references for the Scottish or UK governments on an assigned current conservation issue. This will assess the student¿s abilities to conduct scientific research, interpret the literature and summarise an issue using language appropriate for a broad policy audience. Students will be asked to replicate the format of a UK government POSTnote. Additionally, students will be encouraged to make a data visualisation (figure or table) with interpretation in a box featured in the POSTnote. The topics will be chosen from issues discussed as a part of the course lectures and will be given to the students in the final weeks of the course.
e.g., Ecosystem service valuation, May 2011 - POSTnote
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/POST-PN-378/ecosystem-service-valuation-may-2011 |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand the concept of biodiversity change and identify threats to global biodiversity.
- Understand how and why we conserve ecosystems and populations.
- Understand people-focused conservation.
- Use ecological and social science methods to communicate science to academic, public and policy audiences.
- Give a poster presentation, write an opinion piece and write a POSTnote on selected topics in the field of conservation science.
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Reading List
Week 1:
Soulé, Michael E. "What is conservation biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems." BioScience 35.11 (1985): 727-734.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/11/727.extract
Kareiva, Peter, and Michelle Marvier. "What is conservation science?." BioScience 62.11 (2012): 962-969.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/11/962.short
Soule, M. The "new conservation." Conservation Biology (2013) 27:895-897.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12147/abstract
Week 2:
Pereira, Henrique M., and H. David Cooper. "Towards the global monitoring of biodiversity change." Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21.3 (2006): 123-129.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953470500337X
Myers, Norman, et al. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities." Nature 403.6772 (2000): 853-858.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6772/abs/403853a0.html
Kareiva, Peter, and Michelle Marvier. "Conserving Biodiversity Coldspots Recent calls to direct conservation funding to the world's biodiversity hotspots may be bad investment advice." American Scientist 91.4 (2003): 344-351.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27858246
Week 3:
Van Houtan, Kyle S. "Conservation as Virtue: a Scientific and Social Process for Conservation Ethics". Conservation Biology 20.5 (2006): 1367-1372
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00447.x/abstract
Justus, James et al. "Buying into conservation: intrinsic versus instrumental value". Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24.4 (2008): 187-191
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347(09)00049-4
Week 4:
Dornelas, M., Gotelli, N.J., Shimadzu, H., Moyes, F., Magurran, A.E. and McGill, B.J., 2019. A balance of winners and losers in the Anthropocene. Ecology Letters, 22(5), pp.847-854.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.13242
Daskin, J.H. and Pringle, R.M., 2018. Warfare and wildlife declines in Africa¿s protected areas. Nature, 553(7688), p.328.
http://www.nature.com/articles/nature25194
Week 5:
Brosius, J. Peter. "Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas at the World Parks Congress". Conservation Biology 18.3 (2004): 609-612
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.01834.x/abstract
Terborough, John. "Reflections of a Scientist on the World Parks Congress". Conservation Biology 18.3 (2004): 619-620
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.01837.x/abstract
Brooks et al. "Protected Areas and Species". Conservation Biology 18.3 (2004): 616-618
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.01836.x/abstract
Juffe-Bignoli, D. et al. "Protected Planet Report 2014". UNEP-WCMC: Cambridge, UK.
http://www.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/gpap_home/?18786/Protected-Planet-Report-2014
Week 6:
Mid-term conference. No required reading.
Week 7:
Blowes, Shane A., et al. "The geography of biodiversity change in marine and terrestrial assemblages." Science 366.6463 (2019): 339-345.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6463/339
And the accompanying perspectives piece: Rapid reorganization of global biodiversity
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6463/308
McGill, Brian J., et al. "Fifteen forms of biodiversity trend in the Anthropocene." Trends in ecology & evolution 30.2 (2015): 104-113.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534714002456
Newbold, Tim, et al. "Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity." Nature 520.7545 (2015): 45-50.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v520/n7545/abs/nature14324.html
IPBES
http://www.ipbes.net/index.php/about-ipbes
Week 8:
Adams, William M. et al. "Biodiversity Conservation and the Eradication of Poverty". Science 306 (2004): 1146-1149
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5699/1146.short
Milner-Gulland, E.J. et al. "Accounting for the Impact of Conservation on Human Well-Being". Conservation Biology 28.5 (2014): 1160-1166
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12277/pdf
Week 9:
Dobson, A. D. M., et al. "Making messy data work for conservation." One Earth 2.5 (2020): 455-465.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220301998
Daskalova, Gergana N., et al. "Landscape-scale forest loss as a catalyst of population and biodiversity change." Science 368.6497 (2020): 1341-1347.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6497/1341
Hansen, Matthew C., et al. "High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change." Science 342.6160 (2013): 850-853.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6160/850.short
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Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Isla Myers-Smith
Tel: (0131 6)50 7251
Email: Isla.Myers-Smith@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Nicola Clark
Tel: (0131 6)50 4842
Email: nicola.clark@ed.ac.uk |
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