Site of study will change from year to year and could include Florida Everglades and Keys Gulf Coast, Desert Southwest, etc. A final examination will follow the trip. See instructor for special course fees. To receive credit, student must be enrolled at beginning of semester. An introduction to the study of populations and communities.
Labs involve discussions of papers from the literature, data analysis, and computer simulations.
A laboratory course to study the genetics of bacteria and their viruses. Genetic mapping will be introduced using techniques involving mutagenesis, recombination, plasmid transfer, transduction and transformation systems. An introduction to the study of ecosystems from the perspectives of biogeochemical cycles, energy budgets, and other emergent properties. Students will develop environmental sampling schemes and ecosystem models needed to study hypothetical scenarios for projects of their own design. Students will gain hands-on experience in some of the principles of cell culture, product isolation and purification, and molecular genetic manipulation of genes that are basic to many areas of this broad and rapidly changing field.