BIRD,PLANT &LAND-USE DYNAMICS

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 16 students. One year of college-level science. Primarily for Environmental Majors, Concentrators and Minors. This class looks at the response of wildlife (birds and plants) to climate change and land-use issues from the end of the last glaciation to the present. Case study topics are: (1) land-use and climate change over time: a paleoenvironmental perspective, (2) environmental transformations: impact of invasive plants and birds and pathogens on local environments and (3) migration of Neotropical songbirds between their wintering and breeding grounds: land-use, crisis and conservation. We visit wildlife refuges along a rural-suburban-urban gradient in order to observe and measure the role refuges play in conservation.  Format: lecture, student presentations, short labs, data collection/analysis and field trips (some on a weekend day in April in place of the week day meeting).