WETS1046 Aquatic ecosystems (4 cr)

The course provides a comprehensive overview about aquatic ecosystems and their drivers, types of ecosystems and contemporary challenges related to environmental changes and ecosystem-based fisheries management, as well as structure and dynamics of food webs.  

After completing this course the student will

• Understand the key components and drivers of aquatic ecosystems

• Know basics of modelling aquatic ecosystem dynamics: their structure and functioning

• Learn about arctic, deep water, coral reef and river systems

• Get experience in running models to visualize and simulate the ecosystem dynamics

• Be able to calculate key metrics of aquatic food webs

• Learn to read scientific literature and synthesize it through essay writing

• Fisheries stock assessment is beneficial.

• Basics of R

• Basics of limnology and ecology 

Lecture:

• Fishing game: https://fishing-the-food-web.bio.jyu.fi/
  

• Basics of R: https://moodle.jyu.fi/course/search.php?search=TILA410
  

• Food web visualization tool: https://network-visualization.bio.jyu.fi/

Book exam, eEXAM

• Kirja: Aquatic Food Webs: An Ecosystem Approach (jlakes.org)

  Fishing game: https://fishing-the-food-web.bio.jyu.fi/

• www.nature.com/scientificreports

  The roles and impacts of human hunter-gatherers in North Pacific marine food webs. Jennifer A. Dunne, Herbert Maschner, Matthew W. Betts, Nancy Huntly, Roly Russell, Richard J. Williams & Spencer A. Wood.

• Allometric scaling enhances stability in complex food webs - Brose - 2006 - Ecology Letters - Wiley Online Library

• Chapter 3 Modelling the dynamics of complex food webs | Community Ecology: Processes, Models, and Applications | Oxford Academic