Global Arc

Terrestrial paleoecology is the study of vegetation and animals in ancient ecosystems. The paleoecology of eastern Africa is significant because it can shed light on the potential role that climate played in human evolution. This course aims to teach students the principles of paleoecology primarily through fieldwork, lab work, and research projects. In the first half of the course, students will be introduced to basic methods in the modern Mpala ecosystem. In the second, they will explore the rich record of human evolution in the Turkana Basin. Students will study bones, teeth, plants, or soils to reconstruct modern and ancient ecosystems.

Malaria, trachoma, leishmaniasis and other vector¬borne diseases take a huge toll on social and economic spheres in developing countries. Huge numbers of work days and lives are lost due to diseases that continue to challenge the technologies and adaptations of humans. Basic research is an essential part of building a range of further scientific questions as well as laying the groundwork for making applied changes based on sound knowledge. Understanding the biology of vectors and the links with climate, demographic and environmental change will enable the development of more effective tools toward disease control and prevention.

This course will cover genomic tools that can be used to study ecology and evolution in the field. Students will use the latest sequencing technologies (Illumina and Oxford Nanopore) to study ecological communities. Together, the students will design a set of studies that will use molecular barcoding to assess the composition of both animal and bacterial communities. They will conduct field trips to collect target samples for our experiments, and then they will extract DNA, amplify target loci, sequence their samples in the field, and analyze the resulting data. This course is offered as part of the semester abroad program in Kenya.

How do genes and neural circuits encode behavior? How have genes and circuits evolved to generate the incredible diversity of behaviors we see across the animal kingdom? This course will explore these questions with an emphasis on recent advances in the primary literature. Each class will focus on a specific behavior with a lecture introducing what is known about its genetic and neural basis followed by a discussion of a paper that builds on that knowledge to ask how the behavior evolves. A major goal of the class will be to learn how to critique contemporary research and generate new testable hypotheses based on previous results.

Students examine how mammals interact with diverse and potentially conflicting features of their environment in order to understand the concepts, methods, and material of comparative natural history. Perspectives include morphology, identification, evolution, ecology, behavior, habitat, and conservation. Original observations and experiments culminate in class, group, and individual research projects. This intensive field course entails two hours of lecture/discussion, six hours of laboratory, and two hours of data analysis daily. Limited to students in the Tropical Ecology Program in Kenya. Prerequisite: 211 and 321.

Students will be immersed in an intensive field experience in Kenya gaining sophisticated training in fieldwork and biological research on African animals and ecosystems. In addition to this training, participants will observe and study organisms ranging from acacia ants to giraffes, go-away-birds to zebras. The course is designed to give students a broad, hands-on understanding of ecology, evolution, and conservation. Lectures include core topics in ecology and evolution. Students will gain experience with experimental design, data collection, and analysis. Limited to students in the Tropical Biology and Sustainability Program in Kenya.

Many ecological issues can only be resolved using remote sensing (RS). RS is needed to answer questions such as: How are habitat features important to species distribution? At what spatial and temporal scales are these features utilized? RS is necessary for addressing practical questions, such as: Am I missing important features that can't be measured from the ground? This terrain is punishing--how am I going to collect enough habitat data for my research? Beginning with an introduction to basic RS concepts, this hands-on course will show how to overcome research challenges and improve understanding of ecological structure and function.

Nature is rife with extraordinary variation in form and function: from bird feathers to the shape of mice sperm or the intriguing immunity of ticks. Recent advances have brought an unprecedented level of resolution to our understanding of how changes in allele frequency generate phenotypic change. We can now study how mutations shape an organism's variation by changing coding sequences, or determining the regulatory information that may change when, where and how a gene is expressed. Topics will stretch across time and scales, from past events that have shaped biological diversity to rapid evolution in experimental evolutionary studies.

This course studies the theory and practical application of sustainable development in East Africa. Students learn about the administrative and sociopolitical structures of Kenya, history of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the agriculture, education, infrastructure, water, and health issues in urban and rural areas. Discussion with communities, field work, practical problem solving, GIS tools, e-tools, modeling, and understanding local constraints form the foundation for this course.

An introduction to the concepts, approaches, and methods for studying complex ecological systems, from local to global scales. Students will examine nutrient cycling, energy flow, and evolutionary processes, with emphasis on experimental approaches and comparisons between terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Particular attention will be on effects of human activities, including climate change, biodiversity loss, eutrophication, and acid rain. Prerequisites: 210 or 211 or equivalent; CHM 301 or equivalent. Two 90-minute classes.