REN R 569 - Biodiversity Analysis

3 units (fi 6)(SECOND, 3-0-2)

Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences

Introduction to the theory and application of biodiversity with emphasis on quantitative analysis of biodiversity data. The course covers the concepts of biodiversity (genetic, species and ecosystem), dynamics of species populations, diversity measurements, estimation of species richness, synthetic patterns of species diversity (species-abundance, species-area, distribution-abundance, local-regional, beta diversity, richness-productivity, etc.), theories of biodiversity maintenance, species distribution models, and methods and models of biodiversity conservation including estimating species extinction risk and viable population size. Laboratory session involves using statistical software R for analyzing various real diversity data. REN R 569 is built on REN R 469 with a focus on problem solving skills, individual projects and advanced R programming. Not to be taken if credit received for REN R 469.