Ecology Internship University of Georgia ECOL 4940 Syllabus Spring 2008 San Luis, Costa Rica

Photograph by Patty Gowaty Pteroglossus torquatus (Gmelin, 1788) Collared Aracari

Instructor John Pickering Institute of Ecology University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602-2602

Room: 538 Biological Sciences Building Email: pick@discoverlife.org Phone: 706-542-1115

The course syllabus is a general plan for the course. Because of weather and other factors, the instructor may need to announce deviations to the class during the course.

Course objectives

Our goal is to help inventory the flora and fauna of the San Luis field station and put it on the web. By so doing, we will help others to identify species and facilitate biological understanding in Costa Rica.

The course will teach nature photography, field methods, specimen identification, and computer skills to share information via the web. Interns will gain an understanding of the diversity of life in a tropical forest. They will be expected to make a well-documented electronic collection of species at San Luis with their cameras. Working in small teams, they will then build local identificaton guides and web pages to target groups of plants, insects, and other living things that they have photographed.

Requirements

Permission of department. This course is primarily designed for students who have taken or are concurrently enrolled in ECOL 1000 or ECOL 1000H. It is also open to students who have an introductory college level science course such as BIOL 1103, BTNY 1210, or equivalent.

Students may register for 2, 3 or 4 credit hours. Each credit hour requires completing 30 hours of work by the end of the semester. Those signing up for 2 credit hours will work 3 hours per day, Monday - Friday, for the 4 weeks 25 February - 21 March (60 hours total). Those signing up for 3 or 4 credit hours will work independently, under the guidance of the instuctor and teaching assistant, for an additional 30 or 60 hours, repectively.

Equipment, books, and supplies

• Camera -- Students must have their own digital camera that can take close-up photographs of insects. Ideally, it should have at least a 4 megapixel sensor and a lens that can zoom in and do macro photography. If you already have a digital camera, can it take a photograph of a dime in which "E PLURIBUS UNIM" is clear when you zoom in? If so, great. If not, consider borrowing or buying a
  • Canon Powershot A640, which is about $350 on the web.

• Waterproof field notebook -- Required
• Magnifying loop -- 15x (or 10x or 20x) magnifying loop -- highly recommended but not required.
• Laptop -- Recommended but not required.
• Binoculars -- Water-proof pair -- recommended but not required.
• GPS -- Global positioning system -- recommended but not required. (Bring a compass too).
• Field guides -- Field guide to Costa Rican birds and/or other groups -- recommended but not required.

Background

The mission of the website Discover Life (http://www.discoverlife.org) is to assemble and share knowledge in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world. It is putting high-quality identification guides, maps, images, and text to a million species on the web. Interns will help to get the species in Costa Rica online.

Topical Outline

• Overview of course goals; Discover Life; technology; scientific questions
• Natural History; species interactions; Tree of Life; scientific and other names; target groups:
  • Birds
          Birds of San Luis
          Galeria de Fotos, Asociación Ornitologócia de Costa Rica
  • Frogs
    
  • Lepidoptera -- particularly butterflies, silk moths, and hawk moths
    
  • Coleoptera -- particularly leaf beetles
    
  • Hymenoptera -- particularly bees and ants
    
  • Plants -- particularly trees, ferns, and vines
    
• Field methods; photography; data collection and record keeping
• Identification: keys; primary scientific literature; books; computer resources; reference collections; experts
• Computer methods; image processing; building identification guides and web pages

Academic honesty:
All academic work must meet the standards contained in "A Culture of Honesty." Students are responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any academic work. The link to more detailed information about academic honesty can be found at: http://www.uga.edu/ovpi/honesty/acadhon.htm. This class is largely based on the honor system, including all web-based research and databasing completed by each student. You alone are responsible for learning all of the material and completing the assignments by the given due date.