Biol 472. Community Ecology. Cr. 3. S. Prereq: Biol 312; The effect of interspecific interactions on the structure and dynamics of natural and managed communities; including concepts of guild structure and trophic web dynamics and their importance to the productivity, diversity, stability, and sustainability of communities. The implications of interspecific interactions in fisheries and wildlife management will be emphasized; illustrated with case histories of interactions between plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates.

Why Community Ecology?
No population or species exists in an ecological or evolutionary vacuum. And, certainly there are many and strong reasons to believe that each directly or indirectly affects the others to greater or lesser degrees. Thus, it is improbable that we can understand or manage a population or species without deliberately accounting for those interactions. To do otherwise is akin to predicting the fate of a particular carbon atom without noticing that it happens to currently reside in the nose of a rhinoceros.
The flip side of this non-revelation is that, to understand anything, we must understand everything. We shall hope that this is not the case. This course is intended to land somewhere in the middle - attempting to bridge the gap between understanding just one population and understanding everything.