The Idaho Museum of Natural History houses the Ray J. Davis Herbarium, mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian collections, and one of the most extensive collections of vertebrate fossils in North America. Diverse habitats available for ecological research include mountain lakes, streams, forests, and sagebrush steppe. Ecological research is conducted in cooperation with various agencies including Idaho Fish and Game, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Energy, and the National Park Service. These fees are waived for graduate students who receive teaching or research assistantships. The Department has 21 teaching assistantships and eight Doctor of Arts fellowships.
Opportunities also exist for graduate students to teach part time.
Research assistantships are awarded by individual members of the faculty who have extramural funding. Applicants holding Master's degrees may be admitted on conditional status if they do not meet the GPA or GRE requirement. Entrance requirements for the Doctor of Arts program are the same as for the Ph. D., except that a Master's degree is required. Applicants for the Master of Science program must have at least a 3.0 GPA for all upper division credits taken at the undergraduate level. If either the GPA or GRE requirement is not met, the Department may choose to admit the candidate on conditional status.