Natural Sciences

Focus on processes controlling distribution, solubility, and biological availability of environmentally important elements in soils. Covers role of soil minerals and organic matter in controlling retention and release of soluble ions and molecules; reaction mechanisms; and energetics. Applies principles and concepts of soil chemistry to different environmental conditions in soils, e.g., acidity/alkalinity, aeration, water potential, and salinity, to predict changes in chemical behavior

Plant toxins and their effects on animals, hormonal interactions between plants and animals, feeding preferences, animal pheromones, and defense substances, biochemical interactions between higher plants, and phytoalexins and phytotoxins

Identification and ecology of aquatic insects, including their role as indicators of environmental quality.

Introduction to wildlife ecology and its relationship to management programs. Includes population, community, and ecosystem levels of organization, followed by selected case studies.

Ecology of insects: interactions with the physical environment; structure and functioning of insect populations and communities; behavioral ecology of predator-prey interactions; plant-insect interactions; social insects; pollination biology; applied insect ecology.

Introduction to the ecology of microorganisms. Topics include interrelationships of microorganisms and their environment; the role of bacteria, actinomycetes, algae, protozoa, and fungi in cycling of the elements, in macroecology and in global ecology; physical, chemical, and biological properties of terrestrial, aquatic, and organismal habitats; population dynamics.

This course will develop principles of ecosystems ecology, emphasizing terrestrial ecosystems, and will consider how these principles apply to ecosystem recovery and to regional and global fluxes of carbon and nutrients.

Natural history and evolutionary biology of island terrestrial and freshwater organisms, and of marine organisms in the coral reef and lagoon systems will be studied, and the geomorphology of volcanic islands, coral reefs, and reef islands will be discussed. Features of island biogeography will be illustrated with topics linked to subsequent field studies on the island of Moorea (French Polynesia).

A survey of the principles and practices of conservation biology. Factors that affect the creation, destruction, and distribution of biological diversity at the level of the gene, species, and ecosystem are examined. Tools and management options derived from ecology and evolutionary biology that can recover or prevent the loss of biological diversity are explored

This laboratory course is designed to introduce students to the major sampling systems used in natural resources and ecology. Field data is collected with various important sampling designs and analyzed. Mean values and confidence intervals are constructed from the data collected in this course