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Canonical Ecology Curriculum
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Within ecology, collaborations are key to understanding the beauty and complexity of nature, and for addressing urgent environmental problems. But how often did we experience collaborations thwarted by miscommunication and lack of a common language? We seem to work with loosely defined concepts and inconsistent vocabulary. Overcoming such problems starts with a well-trained new generation of ecologists. For them, a Canonical Ecology Curriculum is needed, focusing on core theories, seminal papers and standard methods used by ecologists.

Based on a conceptual and operational backbone, such a curriculum could be taught in graduate programmes worldwide, augmented by local examples, individual research interests and enthusiasm. It would minimize the ambiguity of what ecologists learn, while enriching our common vocabulary, reinforcing our ability to understand nature and address complex environmental issues.

We call for a global, open collaboration to collectively develop the curriculum, and make it directly usable in real-world teaching. As a starting point, we provide eight central spatiotemporal themes, ranging from molecular to global, with recommendations on target variables, theories, classical studies, methods and teaching resources.

If you are interested in joining our cause, take a look at, and comment on, the current version of our curriculum’s backbone (for more background reading see our paper in Basic and Applied Ecology):

  • Below the table, please link any suitable free teaching material to openly share with colleagues.
  • If you miss something in the curriculum, please add this topic at the bottom of the text along with a justification.
  • If you think something is not important enough for a core curriculum, please leave a similar note below the table to tell us why.

The elements of the Canonical Ecology Curriculum

Only shaded rows are developed, the others are very preliminary. Links point to resource. Orange: advanced topics, MSc-level or higher; green: fundamental technical skills.

Scale Target variables (examples) Theory or Framework Classics (by keyword) Methods
Global Biomass, production; species occurrence; species richness; functional traits; Stoichiometry; C-balance, O2-production Island biogeography; Species-energy relationship; Stoichiometry-energy relationship; Speciation, extinctions; (animal) migration; Mid-domain effect; (Macroecology;) Bergman’s rule; Foster’s rule; Rapoport’s rule Island radiation (Echium, Geospiza); Biome delineation; GlobalCarbonBudget; Latitudinal gradient in species richness; Island radiation (Echium, Geospiza);

We started putting together some thoughts about why something should go into the curriculum here.

Contact: carsten.dormann@biom.uni-freiburg.de