Námskeiðslýsing

An understanding of the natural variations in populations and communities is a fundamental prerequisite for evaluating the effects of natural and human-induced disturbances in marine habitats. The course will give an overview of population variations in marine organisms across time and space and how these may differ among species and communities. How do we sample populations and what kind of design is needed to detect differences in abundance or in other parameters of marine organism communities? How do we discriminate between natural variations and human-induced variations? How do we construct Marine Protected Areas (MPA) which take population and community variations into account? The course has a strong practical component, in that students will apply a variety of statistical methods in assessing variations in populations and communities, such as univariate (parametric/non-parametric) and multivariate (ordination techniques) methods. Student will assess research papers/reports in terms of possible flaws in the sampling design or statistical testing. Students will carry out their own projects by designing a sampling strategy, sampling natural populations/communities in the vicinity of the University Center, evaluating the data and writing a report.

Hæfniviðmið

• Students will acquire knowledge and understanding of the importance of natural variations in populations and communities when it comes to protecting and/or utilizing marine species and communities
• Students will be better able to critically assess studies of the exploitation of marine populations or human effects on species and communities
• Students will acquire knowledge about the size and structure of MPA in relation to natural variations in organisms inhabiting them
• Students will be able to design their own sampling strategy appropriate to the population/community under study
• Students will be able to run ordination programs to understand and discern patterns in large data sets

Námsmat

Final project (40%, group). Assessing research papers (20%, individual). Statistical assessments of population variations and community variability (25%, individual). Participation in discussions (15%, individual).

Kennari

Emil Ólafsson (Iceland) earned a BSc degree in Biology from the University of Iceland followed by a postgraduate research project and courses in Marine Biology. He did his PhD in Marine Ecology in Edinburgh, Scotland, followed by postdoctoral studies in Stockholm, Sweden, where he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology. He has lectured on various subjects and supervised 8 PhD and 15 MSc students. He has also organized and/or been an invited lecturer at a number of national and international post-graduate courses in several countries. He has been an evaluator for numerous PhD theses and research proposals for various universities and funding agencies. Dr. Ólafsson sits on the editorial committees of several international journals including Marine Ecology Progress Series. He is the founder and Scientific Director of Menntun (www.menntun.org), a consultancy company specializing in environmental research and education.

Gestafyrirlesari

Ítarefni