Time Schedule:
Robert J Naiman
FISH 511
Seattle Campus
Contemporary problems and issues in evolution, ecology and behavior as they relate to fisheries and aquatic sciences.
Class description
Riparian Ecology and Management
Riparian systems are associated with nearly all continental waters – lakes, streams, rivers, wetlands, springs, and estuaries. This course will focus on the riparian zones of small to medium-sized floodplain rivers where we’ll explore fundamental patterns and processes that can be applied to all riparian systems. We’ll examine heterogeneity at multiple scales of space and time, describe interactions among scales, and formulate conceptual models that integrate major system components. We’ll explore how climatic and geological processes shape an array of physical templates, discuss how disturbances re-distribute materials, and understand how soils and subsurface processes form and are sustained on the major physical templates. Ultimately, the class will develop a perspective on how riparian characteristics integrate climate (past and present), geological materials and processes, soil development and attendant microbial transformations, subsurface characteristics, plant productivity, animal activities, and woody debris characteristics – and the active, continuous and variable feedbacks between the individual components and the human societies that utilize them in so many diverse ways.
Class readings will be derived from a textbook being written on Riparian Ecology (to be published by Academic Press in 2004) and from other manuscripts that are currently submitted or in press. Upper division undergraduates are welcome.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
Schedule, Topics, & Readings 7 Jan Riparia – An Overview & Class Organization Preface/Introduction
14 Jan The Physical Environment Chapter 2
21 Jan Classification Chapter 3
28 Jan Community Structure Chapter 4
4 Feb Ecological Functions Chapter 5
11 Feb Ecosystem-scale Dynamics & Processes Chapter 6?
18 Feb A Changing World Chapter 7
25 Feb Conservation Chapters 8&9
3 Mar Restoration Chapter 10
