The study of populations and communities and the interactions of organisms within their environment. Topics include ecosystem structure and function, population dynamics, community structure, food webs, energy flow, nutrient cycles, biogeography, associations, succession, adaptation and niche analysis, and interspecific interactions. The course is taught in a blended format with a significant online course component. The laboratory component includes extensive field work. Students working in groups must design and implement a research project involving data collection from a campus ecosystem. The project culminates in a group oral presentation. Students are also encouraged to present their results at a local or regional conference and/or submit their results for publication to a peer-reviewed undergraduate research journal. The lecture component is hybrid/remote with once a week synchronous Zoom meetings, an asynchronous assignments including recorded lectures, quizzes and discussion boards. The laboratory includes a face2face required field project.
