Biology 437
Tropical Field Ecology
My objectives for this course center
around two main goals. 1) To provide experience carrying out the
process of ecological investigation and 2) To introduce some
important aspects of the ecology of tropical ecosystems with some
consideration of the interactions of people and nature. The first
goal is central to how I have conceived the course - as an
opportunity to do ecological field research from start to finish:
reading what others have done; conceiving ideas about what you would
like to do and constructing proposals; facing the real world in the
field and having to make decisions about what might really be
possible to do; and working in groups to gather data, analyze, write
up and present the results to the broader community. The tropics are
a special place to become inspired about studying ecology. The
ecology of tropical systems is intimately affected by the human
populations that live in and near them. This has been true for
thousands of years, but the human effects are becoming increasingly
apparent as populations grow and people strive for a higher "standard
of living". Any consideration of the ecology of tropical regions must
therefore consider the interaction between humans and the natural
world.
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