MBIO640
This course is a three-week-long intensive aimed at providing students with a grounding in the linking of organismal traits and habitat features with ecosystem functions. The course focuses on coral reefs, but there will be opportunity to examine a range of organisms and habitats via an independent research project. Through readings and lectures, students will delve into biological and ecological concepts ranging from island biogeography to niche construction, allometric scaling to trait-based ecology. Students will be exposed to a range of new technologies for measuring and reproducing 3D structures of organisms and habitats, such as laser scanning, structure from motion (SfM) and 3D printing. Analyses and coding in R will draw together existing trait databases, GIS techniques and generalized linear models. The course is hands-on, with ample time allocated to fieldwork collecting data in Kāne‘ohe Bay and at the coral nursery at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, and the potential to develop research projects into publications.