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Woody Plants: Natural History and Identification
EEB 355, PitE 337, NRE 455
Woody Plants is an intensive field- and lecture-based learning experience, in which undergraduate and graduate students learn to identify 160 woody plant species (trees, shrubs and vines) that are important in Michigan environments. Students learn about their taxonomy, distribution, habitat associations, and biogeographic history and even how to identify them in their leafless winter condition. The lab component consists of weekly field trips in the Ann Arbor area, which include riparian and floodplain habitats, glacial lakes, moraines, bogs, fens and mesic forests. The lectures cover elementary aspects of plant identification, taxonomy and ecology. The broader themes treated in lecture include biogeographic history and the assembly of Michigan plant communities, both before and after major glaciations, ecological specialization, and impacts of global warming and other anthropogenic environmental changes.
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Molecular Ecology
EEB 412
The infusion of genetic markers into studies of ecology and evolution has led to the formation of a new field, Molecular Ecology. Molecular Ecology is a graduate level course that that explores how new genetic markers, methods of analyses and computational techniques have helped biologists to better understand the ecology and evolution of organisms in the wild. The topics covered in lecture include genetic diversity, population genetic structure, kinship, species discovery, environmental genomics and community phylogeny. Students will learn the strength and limitations of different classes of molecular markers and analyses, and they will analyze empirical datasets in order to gain familiarity with current techniques.
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TROPIBIO Seminar series
EEB 800
The weekly TROPIBIO seminar involves presentation and discussion of student and faculty research in tropical biology. It draws attendance primarily from EEB and the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE).
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