Introduction

Fisheries Population Analysis

The subject matter of FW5601, population dynamics, is the foundation of the fish and wildlife management traditions that have been formalized throughout the world during the Twentieth Century. It is certain that fisheries management knowledge has been shared for millenia among indigenous people who developed strict codes for the harvest, distribution and conservation of marine and freshwater fishes. These have been largely supplanted throughout the industrialized world by "scientific" fisheries management which has its conceptual roots in the works of European and North American biologists who established formal procedures for the analysis of fish populations over the past century. Wildlife management, as practiced in North America, is generally identified with the publication in 1933 of Aldo Leopold's book, Game Management. While Leopold made no claim to founding the discipline (he was trained in forestry), others have chosen to develop the Leopold legacy with a rich literature about the conditions necessary for the well-being of terrestrial vertebrate populations. In the chapters that follow, we will attempt, through prose, graphics, and a plethora of examples, to introduce you to some of the practices that have proven useful in the endeavor to manage aquatic and terrestrial populations. The course title was previously "Assessment and Management of Vertebrate Populations." The change in 1997 to "Fisheries Population Analysis" reflects the reduction of course content to that of a 3 semester-hour course as a result of removing the "specimens lab" also called the "wildlife lab." That part of the previous course contained most of the material that was exclusive to terrestrial vertebrate populations, so that much of what remains depends heavily upon examples drawn from the fisheries literature. Almost all of the material remains applicable to vertebrate populations of any kind, terrestrial or aquatic, hence you will find many references in these course notes to terrestrial vertebrates as well as to fish.
 

Your part, should you choose to accept it, will be to assimilate as much of this material as possible into your knowledge base. In doing so, we (me, specifically, our Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology and our College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences) would greatly appreciate your feedback on the format of the course. In particular, we would like to know whether or not the multi-media presentation has, in your opinion, enhanced your interest in the material, and/or provided an increased opportunity for you to explore and understand the subject matter of the course. Please understand at the outset that you are required to use the multimedia features of these class notes. The information required for you to meet our course expectations is available in its entirety in the printed notes, in the references or reserved library materials accessible to students enrolled in the course, and in the material presented on site at lectures and laboratory sessions and in the FW5601 Web site. In reviewing these notes outside of the classroom, maximum effect will be assured if you have access to a console or portable personal computer, with an Intel 486 processor (or better), and a Windows operating system, or a Macintosh computer (PowerPC or upwards) with at least 64 megabytes (preferably 128MB) of random access memory. Your system should be equipped with a hard drive of several gigabytes capacity and a CD ROM or DVD drive. Minimal applications software include a browser or word processing software that can read these files, a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft EXCEL ®, and an e-mail client program. The computers in the College of Natural Resources laboratory, Room 35, Skok Hall, at the University of Minnesota, are fully capable of running the software necessary to review all the material contained within these notes.

We expect to be able to ascertain, with your assistance, and through prior experience, whether or not the web-based format is useful to our students. Please be candid in your evaluation of the course, the instructor, and the format. There is a formal instrument (questionnaire) for course evaluation that you will be required to complete on the last day of class, but I will expect an on-going evaluation from you continuously throughout the quarter during lecture periods, laboratories, and informal discussions, both personal and electronic. Following the course outline below there is a brief introduction to the multi-media format of this course. Students resident at the University of Minnesota are encouraged to go to the computer laboratory in 35 Skok Hall, St. Paul campus, to run this set of notes interactively. Other computer laboratories on University of Minnesota campuses will provide fast internet access to the web site, but statistical procedures specific to some of the examples in the laboratory excercises may require local copies of application programs such as JMP, R, or SAS.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Instructors: Professor George R. Spangler; I prefer to be addressed as George, Mr., Dr., or Professor Spangler.
2. Lectures: Meet in Hodson Hall, Room 490, Tuesday, Thursday, 8:30-9:20AM
3. Laboratory: Analytical lab to be convened Tuesday afternoons, 3-4:55PM, in 35 Skok Hall.
4. Office: Located in 124 Hodson Hall; office hours, by appointment, or, Monday-Thursday, 9 AM to 12 PM, except during scheduled classroom hours. Questions about the coursework will be addressed on a first-come, first-served basis, except examination questions which will be dealt with only by prior appointment.
5. Telephone inquiries: Call my office phone (612) 624-9229, or leave a message with the Dept. Fisheries,Wildlife and Conservation Biology office, (612) 624-3600. When my phone is busy or unattended, voicemail will accept a message.
6. E-mail communications: My address for class-related business is: spang001@umn.edu. I scan this mail box almost continuously throughout the day, so please feel free to use it for anything related to the course. All students at the University of Minnesota are assigned an E-mail address on one of the university's mail servers. Use your e-mail capabilities from your own computer, or from any of the computers available to you at University computer laboratories. The resources of the Internet and the World Wide Web are available to you through fast switches and local area networks on any of the University of Minnesota campuses. Additional information about web-accessible material can be explored with the assistance of your laboratory instructor during the first few laboratory sessions.
7. Teaching Assistant--No TA is available for the course this year. For questions about the laboratory material, please visit my office during scheduled office hours.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To provide a background in the characterization and analysis of vertebrate populations for prospective professionals in resource management by way of the following student performance objectives:

1. Familiarization with the fundamental theories of population dynamics
2. Conceptualization, in a simulation modelling framework, of the relationships between fish and wildlife populations and the biotic and abiotic factors impinging upon them
3. Developing an appreciation of the impact of management activities on wild populations, with special reference to exploitation
4. Developing technical skills in the quantitative description of animal populations and the estimation of relevant biological statistics.
5. What this course is not trying to do : Make the student a skilled (or semi-skilled) fisheries or wildlife technician. Students will be introduced to some of the very basic arts and technologies associated with necessary procedures of population analysis, e.g. ageing fish by the scale method, or from otoliths. The major content of the course will focus upon the conceptual bases of population dynamics.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The course objectives will be approached through lectures, laboratories, recitations, assigned readings and a class problem:

1. Classes will be convened in a lecture-discussion format, in which most of the material will be presented through lectures, with clarification by oral discussion. All students will be expected to write brief essays from time to time in the classroom, or whenever topics of special interest arise. You are responsible for all material presented during regularly scheduled classroom hours. Most of this is in the printed class notes, but you will not be exposed to all of the material unless you attend class.
2. One analytical laboratory session will be conducted Tues., 3-4:55 PM (Rm 35 Skok Hall).
3. Readings -- Material supplemental to the lectures will be assigned as outside reading. Some of the reading material will provide subjects for brief essays written in the classroom.

LECTURE SCHEDULE

See syllabus.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND EVALUATIONS

Weighting of assignments and examinations to compute a final grade will be as follows: Quizzes, probably numbering 4-6 will constitute 75% of your overall grade; laboratory evaluation, 25%, including the term project.   Writings in class will be evaluated on an S/N basis for use in deciding borderline letter grades. All students must complete a course evaluation questionnaire on the last day of class and turn it in to the Dept. FWCB. Incomplete coursework will result in a failing grade if not completed by the end of the following academic term.

REQUIRED READINGS

All assigned readings are required and will be used as background material for examination questions and in-class essays.

LABORATORY

Exercises and evaluations will be conducted independently of the lecture material and will result in a single numeric score that will be included in determination of the course grade as defined above.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

Textbook is optional: Modelling and Quantitative Methods in Fisheries by Malcolm Haddon. Available at the St. Paul campus bookstore.

Bring at least one 3 1/2" high density floppy disk (1.4 Mbytes capacity) to the first analytical laboratory session. Alternatively, if you have a "flash drive" or other portable recording device, please check to see that it is compatible with the equipment in the computer lab before bringing it to class.

OPTIONAL MATERIALS

Course notes are no longer available for the class in printed form, but they are available under the "Class Notes" button on the splash page. The information on the web site will be the information of record for the course.

We recommend that you install on your own compuater, a personal copy of the R programming language for the Macintosh or Windows-based PC. All analyses from the computer lab should be transportable to your own computer, or to other university microcomputer laboratories that have the R software installed.  Programs are available in the microcomputer laboratory for spreadsheet analysis, drawing and painting, word processing, and simulation modelling. Students may bring their own programs for these functions, but must not copy the software provided in the microcomputer lab (see CFANS Lab rules).

RATIONALE FOR MULTIMEDIA APPROACH

Our rationale for the multi-media approach is based upon the notion that variety in teaching materials may add interest for students and appeal to a broader spectrum of students than would a "one size fits all" approach. We have only just begun to make the notes and course material more interactive. I welcome any suggestions that students may offer regarding materials, or methods that may enhance interest or learning opportunities in the course. A more complete presentation of our rationale is located here.

Original Content by Prof. George R. Spangler (Course Instructor)
Date created: Dec. 19, 1995, Last modified: September 16, 2004, Copyright © 2005, 2008. George R. Spangler