This course has two objectives: to go over all of the biological science that informs successful conservation efforts and to apply and illustrate this science while living and learning in one of the world’s hot spots of biological diversity, the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Conservation biology seeks principles for all fields of biology: genetics, population biology, ecology, and evolution. On the one hand, conservation biology is an applied field, but, on the other it is aimed at the basic understanding of how nature works. We will find that there are interesting unanswered questions to ponder as we think about the research questions of the future. We will discuss conservation ethics, the definition of biological diversity, patterns of species richness, island biogeography, population genetics, population biology and modeling, metapopulations, and community and ecosystem ecology. We will spend time both in the classroom and in the out-of-doors along the mountain trails so accessible in the Highlands area.

http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/