EEB 521: Tropical Ecology
This is an intensive three-week field course undertaken in January in a suitable tropical zone. There are readings, discussions, and individual projects. Recent locations have included Kenya, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Australia. Students go into the field with a faculty member and take part in readings, discussions, and complete individual or group projects. This is a required course and students should complete this in their first year. Students provide their own travel funds. In January 2011 the course will be taught in Costa Rica. Here are the titles of some recent individual projects:
- Regeneration stage influences diversity and abundance of herpetofauna communities, macrofungi and epiphytes in southwestern Costa Rica
- Coral diversity and current flow on One Tree Island, Australia
- Nesting preferences and population estimates of a new Black Noddy (Anous minutus) breeding colony on One Tree Island, Great Barrier Reef
- Variation in shell size and condition in a terrestrial hermit crab community: Implications for the energetics of load carrying
- Refuse disposal by Atta colombica, or How do leaf-cutting ants take out their trash?
- Spatial patterning and movement in a marine snail
- Costs of Parasitism and Behavioral Adaptions to Ameliorate its Affects in Four Species of Colonial Weavers
- A Comparison of Intestinal Parasites in Three Species of Africa Ungulates and Their Affect on Behavior
- Dik-diks Know Their Shit: Dunging and Territoriality in a Dwarf Antelope
- Patterns of Butterfly and Scarab Beetle Diversity at Mpala Research Centre, Laikipia, Kenya
- Herbivore and Grass Variation in the Different Habitats of Mpala Ranch, Kenya
- Nutrient Loss Patterns from Evergreen Montane Forest, Mount Kenya: A Pilot Study
