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**Policy & Planning
**Science & Statistics

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This course will introduce practitioners to ecological principles and areas of current
research in plant ecology in order to apply these concepts to management of National Wildlife Refuge System lands or other federal lands. The ecological and evolutionary relationships among plant structure, function and the environment and how it relates to management decisions on the land will be stressed. Specific topics will include: plant response to low water and excess water conditions, global climate change, spatial patchiness, and non-native competition. Plant interactions with fire, pollinators, herbivores, pathogens and community population dynamics will be covered. Using insights from research and long-term monitoring studies of vegetation, ecological management case studies will be presented. A field trip will include practice with designing management protocols for vegetative communities.

College Credit: 2 semester hours

Who Should Attend: Biologists, refuge and land managers and others who need
additional botanical expertise.

Length: 5 days/36 hours

Objectives: By the end of this session, the participant will be able to:

• Be able to demonstrate an understanding of the principles of plant ecology and how these apply to your land base;
• Describe how a changing environment affects plant life and ecological interactions; and
• Demonstrate an understanding of how individual plants, populations and communities adapt, respond and change over time.