UA, Centre for Plant Animal Interaction Studies

BIOL 331: Population Ecology	Principles of population ecology as they apply to plants and animals; population consequences of variation among individuals; habitat structure and population structure; habitat selection and foraging theory; life tables, demography, and the evolution of life history patterns; population dynamics; interactions among organisms (predation, competition, mutualism); and population regulation.
BIOL 332: Plant ecology	Study of the local factors which limit plant growth, reproduction, and diversity. Particular emphasis on the mechanisms by which plants interact with their local environment and the effects of these interactions on diversity and community functioning. Specific topics include plant foraging, germination ecology, mechanisms of competition and facilitation, patterns of diversity, and community stability.
NEW COURSE (FALL 2003) BIOL 432: Methods in plant ecology*	A field/laboratory course in which students will be introduced to common techniques used in plant ecology. Topics covered will include reproductive ecology, plant competition, field sampling, seed ecology, and community analysis.
NEW COURSE (FALL 2004) BIOL 433: Plant-animal interactions*	Plants and animals have a long co-evolutionary history, and this course will explore many of the ways in which plants and animals use and abuse each other. Specific topics include pollination biology, herbivory, and dispersal. Emphasis will be on both the evolutionary ecology and ecological implications of these interactions. The seminar component consists of weekly discussions of related literature.
BIOL 470: Landscape ecology	Landscapes are holistic entities whose patterns influence ecological processes. Topics highlighted in this course include landscape components, morphology and dynamics; detecting spatial/temporal change in landscapes; issues of scales; movements of organisms, disturbances, and nutrients across landscape mosaics; and restoration, planning and management in a landscape context. Labs emphasize GIS applications to characterizing landscape patterns and heterogeneity in space and time, distributing and moving organisms across landscapes, and restoring or planning landscapes for conservation objectives.
Bot 544: Biology of Plant Stress - Biotic	Focus is on recent advances in plant responses to pest and pathogen stress, and how these are studied. Topics of discussion include mechanisms of stress perception and signal transduction, adaptive changes in gene expression, resistance genes and biochemical mechanisms of defense. Offered in odd-numbered years.
BIOL 560: Current Topics in ecology	Seminar and reading course on current problems in the ecology. Topics vary each term, and have included plant ecology, plant-animal interactions, spatial analysis, modeling in ecology, etc.
BOT 600: Seminar in Plant Biology	Seminar and reading course on current problems in plant biology.
BIOL 631: Seminar in Ecology	Seminar series on current research in ecology.
BIOL 633: Advanced Techniques in Biology	This course will cover specialized topics of current interest to graduate students in Biological Sciences with an emphasis on learning new research skills. Topics have included Baysian statistics, microscopy techniques, molecular methods, GIS and radio tracking, etc.