Anyone done Ecology?

[Hunter's Moon]

I was going to do Advanced Chemistry for my Senior Year but recently picked up a free Ecology book from the library that caught my eye (I'm very interested in Evolution and the like).

 

It is Ecology: The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance by Charles J. Krebs and is the fifth edition.

 

The book has no answers in the back as most questions aren't so cut and dry, but some questions are mathematical (well, sorta. More like population statistics, and applied mathematics, etc.) If you didn't have the answers, would you still use this book for an Ecology course? Of course, since it is a book for majors, it has a lot of room for discussion, but there is only me, myself, and I, so I'd just be reading through myself and answering the questions how I saw fit.

 

The college I am interested in doesn't have a mathematical pre-req to their Ecology course, if that matters.

 

I plan to add a lab component and I do have my Chemistry kit from Apologia and some other tools around here I could use.

 

Would you do this or worry about screwing up the math parts (most chapters have a few math questions thrown in, but most questions are about theories and their applications).

 

I'm worried that by answering the questions without someone knowledgeable in this subject to look them over, I'll mess it up, but most of the questions are about forming your own theories based on what was taught previously in the book and uses already set-up models shown in the book.

Edited August 15, 2011 by BeatleMania

[HistoryMom]

I'd probably go for it and not attempt the math questions that I wasn't fairly sure I could work through. Ecology and similar topics are very conceptual and can be studied without necessarily delving into the math. You can take it in any direction you'd like. An understanding of how to read and use statistics is useful, but I wouldn't get too caught up in the calculations at this point.

 

[i minored in Environmental Studies and did some graduate work in the subject as well; the math was only tangential and IF I wanted to pursue it. Which I didn't. :) ]

[kiana]

Here's an MIT OCW course which uses the 5th edition of this text: http://tinyurl.com/3oopzfx

They have 3 problem sets with solutions available. The 2003 quizzes/solutions are also up.

[Hunter's Moon]

I'd probably go for it and not attempt the math questions that I wasn't fairly sure I could work through. Ecology and similar topics are very conceptual and can be studied without necessarily delving into the math. You can take it in any direction you'd like. An understanding of how to read and use statistics is useful, but I wouldn't get too caught up in the calculations at this point.

 

[i minored in Environmental Studies and did some graduate work in the subject as well; the math was only tangential and IF I wanted to pursue it. Which I didn't. :) ]

 

This is what I thought. I'm taking Calculus this year, not Statistics, but the math in the book is basically formulas for population growth, evolutionary chances, etc., etc.

 

Here's an MIT OCW course which uses the 5th edition of this text: http://tinyurl.com/3oopzfx

They have 3 problem sets with solutions available. The 2003 quizzes/solutions are also up.

 

Oooooh, thank you! I hadn't even thought to look at MIT. :D

[kiana]

This book/course is on my list for self-education, so if you do go with it I'd love to hear how it works out. I just don't have enough hours in the day at the moment. :D