Reading Assignments for 10/5 - 10/7

10/5 (Tuesday)

Direct Disturbance and its Effects on Invasion

• "Disturbance, Diversity and Invasion: Implications for Conservation." by Richard J. Hobbs and Laura F. Huenneke. (1992) Conservation Biology. 6(3) pp. 324-337. [Available to download from Prometheus system]
  
• "Experimental evidence on the importance of disturbance intensity for invasion of Lantana camara L. in dry rainforest-open forest ecotones in north-eastern NSW, Australia" by J.A. Duggin and C.B. Gentle. (1998) Forest Ecology and Management. 109 pp. 279-292. [Available to download from Prometheus system]

10/7 (Thursday)

Indirect Disturbance and its Effects on Invasion
Our Guest Speaker for today will be Dr. Jeffrey Dukes

• Does global change increase the success of biological invaders? by Jeffrey Dukes and Harold Mooney. (1999) Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 14(4) pp. 135-139. (.pdf)
  
• "Impacts of Biological Invasions on Disturbance Regimes." by Michelle C. Mack and Carla M. D'Antonio. (1998) Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 13(5) pp. 195-198. [Available to download from Prometheus system]

Supplementary Info for Kolbe Article

Not sure why this Nature Article starts out referring to Supplementary figures, instead of putting them in the paper, but I downloaded the extra information, and you can get it by clicking here (Word doc). Figure S1 is missing from the document so we will just have to imagine what it looks like using the figure description :-).

Resources for Invasive Species Literature

Below are some resources you may find helpful for your research projects. For these or any type of web search, you should perform the search for every common and scientific name used for your study species.

Invasive Species-Specific

• The Nature Conservancy's Invasive Species Initiative. Still the first place to go if you are researching a non-native plant, but now also a good resource for information about other non-plant pests as well. Be sure to check their Management Library for species monographs (Note: The Element Stewardship Abstracts in the Management Library are also a good general guide for how your species monograph should look)
  
• The Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants has a huge, searchable database of literature for both aquatic and terrestrial plants.
  
• The InvasiveSpecies.gov website has a page listing other Invasive Species Databases.
  
• The Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database from the USGS is an excellent repository of background information and species records.
  
• Sea Grant's National Aquatic Nuisance Species Clearinghouse is a great repository of sources for aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates.
  
• This searchable database is also from Sea Grant but seems to yield different results...I recommend checking them both.

General Research

• Check the list of electronic databases offered by the UMB library. You should at least peruse the following:
  
  • Science Direct
    
  • JStor
    
  • Ingenta
    
  • WorldCat (Specifically, the Dissertations and PapersFirst options available in the pull-down menu!)
  
  
• Our library offers Interlibrary Loan for books, reports and journals you can't get electronically. Visit the Reference Desk if you need help accessing these valuable resources.
  
• Use the Entrez portal to search GenBank, PubMed, and other databases, the best way to dig up information about any molecular work being done on your study species.

Homework for week of 9/28/04

Just a reminder, this week you should be prepared to provide information about when your species was introduced (to Massachusetts, or New England, or someplace where that species is considered invasive, whichever is appropriate). Did your species have a lag time? Is it in its lag time now?

You should also be looking into whether any genetic studies have been done on your species or related organisms, and be prepared to mention these studies in class.

Both of these topics should be part of your written report.

Reading Assignments for 9/27-10/1

The search for a good article on natural invasion was a bust, so we're going to skip over that. The esteemed Dr. Richard V. Kesseli is scheduled to speak briefly to the class on 9/28 population genetics, following our discussion of lag-time curves, then it's on to some great non-plant genetics papers on Thursday:

9/28 (Tuesday)

• "Lag times in population explosions of invasive species: causes and implications." (1999) Chapter 7 in Invasive Species and Biodiversity Management, edited by Sandlund et al., Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands. pp. 103-125 [handed out in class]
  
• "Hybridization as a stimulus for the evolution of invasiveness in plants?" by Ellstrand and Schierenbeck (2000) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 97(13): 7043-7050 [.pdf file]

9/30 (Thursday)

• "Reduced genetic variation and the success of an invasive species." by TsuTsui et al. (2000) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 97(11): 5948-5953. [.pdf file]
  
• "Genetic variation increases during biological invasion by a Cuban lizard." by Kolbe et al. (2004) Nature. 431: 177-181. [.pdf file]

Homework for week of 9/21/04

Just a reminder that you should be getting started on your semester project by researching the following question:

What are the biological characteristics of your species that make it invasive?

Keep in mind that you may have to look at related species or at the type of organism you are studying to answer this question. Be prepared to discuss your findings in class.

Reading Assignments for 9/20 - 9/24

This week we are going to look at the biological characteristics of successful invasive species.

For Tuesday 9/21:

1. "Invasive species profiling? Exploring the characteristics
   of non-native fishes across invasion stages in California." (.pdf file) Marchetti et al. (2004) Freshwater Biology. Vol. 49, pp. 646-661.
   
2. Ecological and physiological characteristics of invading species. in Ecology of Biological Invasions. Newsome, A. E. and I. R. Noble (1986). Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1-20. [Handed out after class]
   
3. Behavioural flexibility and invasion success in birds." (.pdf file) Sol et al. (2002) Animal Behaviour. Vol. 63, pp. 495-502.

For Thursday 9/23:

1. "Is invasion success explained by the enemy release hypothesis? (.pdf file) Colautti et al. (2004) Ecology Letters. Vol. 7, pp. 721-733.
   
2. "Feedback with soil biota contributes to plant rarity and invasiveness in communities." Klironomos, J.N. (2002) Nature. Vol. 417, pp. 67-70.[Available to download from Prometheus system]

From the Classroom to the Website

Tsering raised a question about today's discussion, so I created a "thread" in the Discussions section of our Prometheus webpage. To read or participate, log in at http://boston.umassonline.net - the course ID is 5690 (email me for the password). Posting is not required, but it certainly won't hurt your participation grade!

Readings in Electronic Format

Many of the readings for this course will be available online, usually as .pdf files. Because of this, you will need two things:

1) An account for UMass Online (the Prometheus system). The login page is here. The place to register for a new account is here. The official course ID is 5690 (don't ask me why), and the password will be emailed to you.

2) Access to the library. If you do not wish to physically go to the library to access their databases, get a barcode for your UMB id card! You need to physically go to the library to get this. Once you have it, you can log in to many free article databases from off-campus. Sometimes your required readings will come from these databases.

Reading Assignments for 9/13 - 9/17

For Tuesday 9/14:

1. "Naturalization and invasion of alien plants: concepts and definitions." (.pdf file) Richardon et al. (2000) Diversity and Distributions. Vol. 6, pp. 93-107.
   
2. "Biological Invasions and Cryptogenic Species." Carlton, J. T. (1996). Ecology 77(6): 1653-1655. [Available via JSTOR]
   
3. Invasive Plant Pests Definitions and Criteria. (2004). NBII Southern Appalachian Information Node.
   
4. A Guide to Designing Legal and Institutional Frameworks on Alien Invasive Species. Environment Policy and Law Paper No. 40 (.pdf file). (2000). IUCN. [Only read Section 1.1 (pp. 1-4)! No need to print out the whole thing!]
   
5. "On invading species and invaded ecosystems: the interplay of historical chance and biological necessity." di Castri (1990). In Biological Invasions in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. pp. 3-16. [Handed out in class!]

For Thursday 9/16:

1. "Recent plant invasions in the Circum-Mediterranean region." Quezel et al. (1990). In Biological Invasions in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. pp. 51-60. Study terminology, skim rest of article! [Handed out in class!]
   
2. Chapters 2 and 5 in Invasion Biology: Critique of a Pseudoscience by David Theodoropoulos. [Available to download from Prometheus system]
   

Scheduling

Here is the official time and day of our class:

Tuesdays 8:30am-10:am
Thursdays 8:00am-9:30am

We will meet in the Biology Conference Room where the organizational meeting was held.

My apologies to anyone who will not be able to make it.

Course Description and Syllabus

You can download the course description and syllabus here (.pdf file). The syllabus may be subject to change as we move forward through the semester.

Welcome to the BIO 697 Weblog!

This weblog was created as a base of communication for BIO 697 - Invasive Species: Ecology & Management. This is a 3-credit, graduate level course at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Stop by for reading lists, homework assignments, and help with your semester project.