These are frequently supplemented with graduate courses in areas of particular interest to individual students such as developmental biology, neurosciences and immunology. During their first year, students explore different research areas and laboratories through lab rotations. In the spring of their first year students select a thesis laboratory and begin to work on their thesis project. Exposure to research in these areas is enhanced by a variety of seminar series, journal clubs, interlab research meetings and an annual retreat at which all labs present their research. While pursuing a thesis topic in depth, students are encouraged to maintain participation in the plant seminars and annual plant biology retreat, and to use these as opportunities to develop a working vocabulary in disciplines as diverse as global ecology and molecular biology.
Research groups work with a diversity of plants, birds, insect, lizards, and marine invertebrates.
The research in this area has not only enriched our basic understanding of living systems, it has also provided insights relevant to a variety of problems of great practical importance, including strategies for the control of insect pests, the design of nature reserves and the prevention of species extinctions and habitat destruction. Research in population, behavioral and ecosystem ecology benefits from proximity of the 1,300 acre Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve the largest and most biologically diverse preserve on any American university campus. The Hopkins Marine Station is a year around marine biology research facility that operates as a branch of the Department of Biological Sciences. It is located about 90 miles from Stanford in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. The Station is an independent campus with fully equipped modern laboratories, an excellent library and all of the specialized equipment necessary for contemporary studies in ecology, biomechanics, molecular and cell biology.