When the pandemic first started, I shared the lectures that I’m creating for ENT/HORT 444/544 (Insect Agroecology) for Master Gardeners who might be interested. The purpose of the course is to examine hypotheses and theory in insect ecology, and translate these to the management of agricultural systems. The course is set up so that students work through lectures on their own time. Every Friday, we meet and discuss two scientific papers that are related to the week’s topic.
After sharing the first two lectures, I stopped sharing course content. Truthfully, I thought (and still think) that most folks will be bored by the content. It’s a little geeky, and doesn’t directly apply to gardens. But today, someone asked me if I had more to share. So, I decided to post them all here.
Some lectures are posted as a single, long lecture. If I had a lot of material to present in a week, I broke the lectures up into smaller chunks, which the students seemed to prefer.
Audio and video quality are consistent with that of a luddite professor, working hard to deliver two classes in a new way, while also dealing with a lot of other COVID-19 pressures. Please be kind in your assessment of each video.
On a desktop or laptop computer: you can minimize my talking head and maximize the slides, by clicking the arrows that are near the top right of each video.
On a mobile device: you can switch between a view of me and a view of the slides by clicking on the small screen with (with the ‘play’ symbol) near the bottom of the screen. Two options will pop up from that small icon. Toggle between the two to view the slides.
Week 1: Insect Diversity and Abundance (35:35)
Week 2: Bottom Up Control of Insect Herbivores: Plant Nutrition (54:11)
Week 3: Bottom Up Control of Insect Herbivores: Plant Defense
- Part 1: Optimal Defense Theory (11:06)
- Part 2: Mechanical Defenses Against Herbivory (14:57)
- Part 3: Chemical Defenses Against Herbivory (26:50)
- Part 4: Biotic and Phenological Defenses Against Herbivory (9:29)
Week 4: Top Down Control of Insect Herbivores (51:27)
Week 5: Competition and Food Webs
- Part 1: Non-Lethal Impacts of Predators and Competition (36:24)
- Part 2: Food Webs (23:14)
- Part 3: Community Assembly (15:02)
Week 6: Pest Management: Insecticides
- Part 1: Secondary Pest Outbreaks and Broad Spectrum Insecticides (12:35)
- Part 2: Insecticide Resistance (29:12)
- Part 3: Non-Target Impacts of Insecticides (35:41)
Week 7: Pest Management: Biotechnologies
- Part 1: What is a GMO
- Part 2: Extent of GMOs on the Market
- Part 3: Resistance Management
- Part 4: Purported Benefits of GMOs
- Part 5: Purported Drawbacks of GMOs
Week 8: Pollinators in Agroecosystems
- Part 1: Value of Pollinators to Agriculture
- Part 2: Managed vs Wild Pollinators
- Part 3: Threats to Bees
Week 9: Climate Change