Ecological Indicators

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

The general concepts and the essential theoretical questions will be approached in lectures supported by audio-visual means. Transposition to practice will, in first place carried out through exercises utilizing adequate software. Afterwards, the students will work on their own projects, partially inspired in environmental situations identified during field work and papers reading. Reports from these activities will be presented by the students in mini-seminars. These reports will be accounted in assessing the students’ performance, and the evaluation will be complemented by a written exam.

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge regarding the concept of ecological indication and its applicability, as well as comprehension of the ecological indicators’ conception and efficiency evaluation processes, in face of different problems and objectives, observation scales, and types of biomes and ecosystems.

Skills to utilize ecological indicators as tools is assessing states and trends in environmental monitoring and management.

Skills to select and apply the most adequate ecological indicators to different monitoring and environmental management situations, both when raw data are already available (more frequent) and when the previous selection of the indicators to be used can precede the sampling design and strategy (optimal situation).

Skills to apply spreadsheets and statistical software to calculate ecological indicators.

Skills to utilize the acquired knowledge in the expected daily practice of a professional in the field of Biology.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

The academic discipline Ecological Indicators introduces the concept of ecological indicator and its applicability as monitoring, assessment, and management tool in different types of biomes and ecosystems. Ecosystems’ disruption processes due to human activities are contextualized at the light of systems’ ecology principles, exploring its interpretative and integrative power and approaching indispensable theoretical concepts on ecosystems’ functioning and integrity, human-environment interactions, and ecological criticality

General concepts of indication theory are approached and the characteristics of a good ecological indicator are analysed, as well as the different levels of indication

The process of selecting and applying the most adequate ecological indicators for each case objectives is explained and illustrated, including:a) Development, application, and evaluation of ecological indicators; b) Indicator systems;c) Metrics; d) Measuring methodologies;e) Fields of application.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Other: 100.0%

Continuous assessment
Laboratory work or Field work: 20.0%
Project: 30.0%
Frequency: 50.0%

Bibliography

Bastianoni, S. J. C. Marques, F. Müller, B. Patten, R. E. Ulanowicz, S. E. Jørgensen, E. Tiezzi, S. N. Nielsen (editor) & B. D. Fath (editor), 2019. A New Ecology: Systems Perspective. 2nd Edition, Elsevier, 316 pp. ISBN 0444637575 (ISBN13: 9780444637574).

Jørgensen, S. E, J. C. Marques & S. N. Nielsen, 2016. Integrated Environmental Management: A transdisciplinary approach. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton, 369 p (ISBN – 13:978-1-4987-0510-3).

Marques, J. C., F. Salas, J. Patrício, J. Neto & H. Teixeira, 2009. Ecological Indicators for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Assessment - A User Guide. WIT PRESS, 208 p

Marques, J. C., 2019. Coastal systems in transition: The game of possibilities for sustainability under global climate change. Ecological Indicators, 100: 11-19.

 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.10.055).

List of other selected papers, updasted each year, including case studies and reviews.