BIOL 338 Advanced Ecology

Prerequisites: BIOL 201 and BIOL 203, or permission of instructor. A literature-based course covering areas of current research in the design of experiments, evolutionary biology, population genetics, community ecology and ecosystem science. The course emphasizes reading and critiquing the primary scientific literature. Lectures and laboratories will stress that modern ecology and evolutionary biology are hypothesis-driven sciences, and that posing sound arguments and collecting solid supporting evidence are essential for a deeper understanding of the history of life on earth and its present-day organization at levels above the individual. Students will put these ideas into practice through the laboratory component of the course as they work on two extended research projects in the field, the greenhouse or the lab.