Land acknowledgement
McMaster University (and this class) is on the traditional
territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations, and within the
lands protected by the “Dish with One Spoon” wampum agreement.
(Why? See “Beyond
Territorial Acknowledgements”
Course goals
Primary: To learn about the ecology and evolution of
infectious diseases and parasites in general, both (1) the E&E
of infectious diseases (how E&E principles apply to
pathogens) and (2) the effect of pathogens on the E&E of their host
organisms and communities.
Secondary: to practice a variety of skills including
critical and creative thinking; critical reading of papers from the
primary and secondary literature; scientific writing and review; web and
literature searches for scientific information.
Check out Perry Jr. (1997).
Expectations
- attend and participate in class (on time); do the reading; ask
questions (including submitting your discussion questions online and
participating in class and online discussions); think critically and
creatively. Please let me know if you can’t participate in class
discussion (shyness, internet/remote-participation issues,
etc.).
- know basic ecological and evolutionary principles (from BIO 1M03,
2C03, 2F03, 3FF3) but more importantly to ask questions, in or
out of class, when you don’t understand something. There is no
such thing as a stupid question. If you don’t know something you’re
probably not the only one in class.
- behave responsibly in online and in-person settings
- do your own work, don’t plagiarize, reference sources appropriately,
credit group work appropriately: see honesty.html.
- Appropriate use of generative AI. We will discuss GenAI at greater
length later, but roughly:
- always cite GenAI use (see citation
guide)
- fixing spelling and grammar: OK, make sure it doesn’t change the
meaning
- polishing writing: if you must, although it might not improve
it
- finding resources: OK, but check that the sources really exist and
that facts are correct
- coming up with ideas: not OK
- writing from scratch: not OK (not even first
drafts)
Readings and discussion
In addition to the textbook, we will read papers from the primary and
secondary literature and discuss them in class every Friday (starting
September 12). I hope to do reading-based interactions on Perusall,
still working out the details.
You will need to submit discussion questions (DQs) by 6 PM
the day before discussion (i.e., Thursday). DQs are ideally conceptual
questions — something you found interesting, or wrong, or puzzling about
the paper and would like to discuss in class — but can also be about
specific terms or points in the paper that you didn’t understand and
would like clarified in class.
Recordings and notes
- I will post lecture notes beforehand; recordings will be available
by request. Don’t expect them to be comprehensive.
- If you prefer notes in another format, ask.
Topics
- Way too much interesting stuff:
- how does the ecology (“distribution and abundance”) of parasites/ID
work? Classic ID epidemiology, population dynamics. Variation in space
and time.
- how do parasites/ID evolve? Phylogenetics, population genetics;
phenotypes, genotypes
- how do parasites/ID affect the ecology of their hosts? Biocontrol,
conservation biology, apparent competition, trophic cascades
- how do parasites/ID affect the evolution of their hosts?
Coevolution
- The important questions:
- How do we know? Population genetics, phylogenetics,
historical records, surveys, experiments, statistics, mathematical
models, meta-analysis …
- So what? Why are we bothering with the details of a
certain fact or definition?