EARTHQUEST (Canada) for the Environment
La Suerte Biological Field Station
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AFBSST Course EARTHQUEST (Canada) now has an opportunity to journey to Costa Rica, primarily to the La Suerte Biological Field Station from 22 July to 16 August, 2011. It will be an interdisciplinary course as all ethnobotany courses have to be. However, this one will present historical perspectives and provide background in a number of disciplines of the natural and social sciences including Geography, Geology, Biology, Ecology, Botany, Anthropology and Ethnobotany. Students will be offered a holistic overview of the physical, biological and cultural context of our field station on Ometepe, the volcanic island on which it is located, and the traditional and modern use of plants in the Neotropics. The ethnobotany of the Neotropics will be compared with that of the tropical islands of the Indo-Pacific Region to give students a broad understanding of the science of ethnobotany in relationship to tropical ecosystems on continents as opposed to remote islands. A special study of contemporary use of plants on Ometepe is planned as a group exercise in ethnobotany in a Neotropical setting. Overall, this course can be seen as an introduction to Natural History in the tropics with a special emphasis on human relationships with plants -- past, present and future.
Description:
The course is a hands-on field experience to familiarize students with the diversity of life in the rainforest while developing a deeper understanding of tropical forest ecology and conservation. With a combination of lectures and fieldwork, time is spent on studying the diverse fauna in a tropical forest through various ecological sampling methods. Through on-site research projects students will build a foundation of skills and knowledge that are applicable to more specialized coursework or field research in primates, botany, herpetology, entomology, etc. We will focus on ecological research, behavior, and quantitative natural history of the more commonly encountered organisms.
During the first week of your stay, we will do quite a bit of hiking with some informal lectures/discussions about the area in which we will be studying and working. We will also have some reading assignments of classic published literature on Tropical Forest Ecology. Articles from EO Wilson, Bates, and Dobzhansky just to name a few. We will also have some classroom time on basic biogeography, plate tectonics, ecological succession, and other ecological topics important to studying in a lowland wet forest of Costa Rica. Some of this will also be geared at learning to recognize some of the local fauna and flora.
In the second week, we will begin coursework on ecological sampling and statistics, especially as it relates to projects evaluating various measures of population and community ecology. It is my intent to let student interests determine which sampling methods are covered. Essentially, this course will be a field ecology and natural history course focused on and in the middle of a tropical rainforest. By the end of the second week students will be expected to have decided upon a project. The project may be individual or in small groups of no more than three.
The last two weeks of the course will be focused on original field projects developed and conducted by the students. Please note that you may be expected to assist each other in completing the project. These projects will culminate in an on-site presentation to your classmates. As we approach the start of the class, I will contact students who have enrolled in this course, as well as any interested students, about preparing for the coursework.
Assessment/ Grading:
Your final grade/mark will be based on the following, and determined out of a total of 100 points:
Coursework marking can be adjusted to accommodate non-US grading/marking systems. If you wish to get college/university credit for this course, please contact me as we will need to make arrangements with your home institution.
The following book has been chosen to help develop supplementary understanding of tropical forest environments and ecological sampling methods. The book may be accessible through your university bookshop, but also on the internet at www.amazon.com.
and study rainforests
D. Jolly, B.Sc.
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..........Services of project staff