Ecology courses

More and more, we are confronted with conflicting demands when trying to develop sustainable land-use strategies, resulting in so-called wicked problems. Scientists working on such wicked problems need to be trained to work in trans-, multi- and interdisciplinary teams of experts with various scientific backgrounds, such as ecologists, economists, political, and social scientists. This course aims to teach them the skills they need for working in such diverse teams, by means of a real-life case. The course is focused around Gällivare, a small town in the north of Sweden, where one can find the “last wilderness of Boreal Europe”, part of an UNESCO World Heritage Site with large nature reserves and national parks. At the same time, it has an active mining industry, forestry, reindeer herding and tourism. It is a perfect place for land use and land use change discussions. A travel subsidy is available for PE&RC PhD candidates.

The course will provide an overview about the application of metabolomics in ecological and biodiversity research. We will explore the tools and approaches that are used to obtain, process and analyse metabolomics data.

In this course, matrix methods will be used to analyze models based on prevalence and incidence data. The methods will go beyond the fixation on mean results and will incorporate variance and stochasticity. The class will introduce methods based on Markov chains, Markov chains with rewards, multistate matrix models, and matrix calculus. The new analyses will be compared, where possible, to traditional approaches.