Design criteria of protected natural areas

To reflect on the socio-environmental importance of protected areas, as well as to provide students with knowledge of the main tools necessary for a suitable design and a correct management of them. Within the conservation programmes of an area, to highlight the basic premise of the need for effort in the conservation of the actual populations, and their important relationship with the maintenance of genetic variability and the agents influent in this maintenance.

Lesson 1. Population genetic structure. Genetic diversity and population estimators. Reduced genetic diversity in threatened species.
Lesson 2. Genetic balance and evolutionary agents. Small populations. Genetic drift and its effects. Inbreeding and effective census: effects on populations of reduced census. Fragmented populations. Gene flow.
Lesson 3. Genetic management of threatened populations. Conservation of genetic diversity: Ex situ conservation and In situ conservation.
Lesson 4. Introduction to International Treaties and European conservation programmes. Fundamentals, plans and derived strategies. Transposition to Spain and Galicia (Law 4/89 and later). Corine Project. Birds and Habitat Directives. Nature 2000 Network.
Lesson 5. Criteria for the design and selection of protected areas. Rarity indices as a selection tool Island theory. Species/area ratio. Equilibrium hypothesis. The design of nature reserves: selection of size, shape and distribution. Higgs and Margules index.
Lesson 6. Conservation of populations. Spatial expression of genetic and demographic variables: Metapopulations. Metapopulation model: Levins' model. Meta-population half-life: Nisbet and Gurney models. Application to landscape conservation: networks and corridors.

Laboratory practice
Estimation of the relationship between conservation area and variation in diversity represented.

Seminars of problems
Students will solved problem and questions of increasing complexity, related to the concepts covered throughout the semester; most of them will make in class.

FIELD TRYP
Field visit to a Natural Park in Galicia, with the following objectives:
- Knowledge of the natural values.
- Verification of the real management of our Natural Parks. Daily management measures and strategies, as well as problems in their implementation.
The visit realised jointly with the subject P4171202 Aproveitamento de recursos en espazos naturais protexidos.

Basic
- Allendorf, F.W.; Luikart, G. 2007. Conservation and the Genetics of Populations. Blackwell.
- Frankham, R.; Ballou, J.D.; Briscoe, D.A. 2004. A Primer of Conservation Genetics. Cambridge.
- Diego, C., García, C. 2007. Los espacios naturales protegidos. Davinci.
- Gorman, M.L. 1991. Ecología insular. Vedra.

Complementary
- Azqueta y Pérez. Gestión de espacios naturales.
- Castroviejo (ed). Prácticas para la planificación de espacios naturales.
- Gorman, M.L. 1991. Ecología insular. Vedra.
- Helliwell, D.R. 1985.Planning for nature conservation. Packard.
- Mills, L.S. 2007. Conservation of Wildlife Populations. Blackwell.
- Sutherland, W.J. 1998. Conservation science and action. Blackwell

- CB9 Students must be able to communicate their conclusions - and the ultimate knowledge and reasons that support them - to specialised and non-specialised audiences in a clear and unambiguous manner.
- CT5 Ability to obtain adequate, diverse and up-to-date information.
- CT6 Ability to produce and present an organised and comprehensible text.
- TC8 Commitment to truthfulness in the information offered to others.
- SC24 Knowing, understanding and applying the principles on which the selection of areas to be protected is based, the principles, techniques and indicators that allow analysing the ecological integrity of protected natural areas and the principles, techniques and indicators that allow genetically assessing the populations to be protected in protected natural areas..

Expository and interactive blackboard lectures
They will be the basic core of the teaching methodology of this subject. They will be given to the whole group. The expository classes will treat the specific contents of the programme and the application of these contents will be done in the interactive classes by means of problems or practical cases.

The development of the contents will do with the help of any material that helps and facilitates the understanding of the concepts that treat (PowerPoint presentations, transparencies, videos, animations, blackboard, etc.).

The timetable (hours) will follow the following schedule:
- Expository teaching: 9
- Interactive teaching: 12
- Evaluation activities: 3
- Tutorials: 3
- Personal work of the student: 48 (approximately 2 hours of work for each hour of expository and interactive teaching).

During the academic work development, and in int this presentation, the use of bibliography in english is recommended (compulsory).

Classroom work: CB9, CT5, CT6, CT8. (40%)
Questions and problems: CT6, CE24. (40%)
Exam: CT6, CE24. (20%)

For the evaluation of repeating students and/or students with dispensation of assistance, the evaluation system will be the same: presentation of reports, assignments and exam.

For cases of fraudulent performance of exercises or tests, the "Normativa de avaliación do rendemento académico dos estudantes e de revisión de cualificacións" (Regulations for the evaluation of students' academic performance and revision of qualifications) will apply.

Regular attendance to face-to-face classes will allow for a dedication of approximately 8 hours per week to be sufficient.

Attendance at classes
Completion of practical work