Introduction
The course is a hands-on field experience to familiarize students with the diversity of life in the rainforest while developing a deeper understanding of tropical forest ecology and conservation. With a combination of lectures and fieldwork, time is spent on studying the diverse fauna in a tropical forest through various ecological sampling methods. Through on-site research projects students will build a foundation of skills and knowledge that are applicable to more specialized coursework or field research in primates, botany, herpetology, entomology, etc. We will focus on ecological research, behavior, and quantitative natural history of the more commonly encountered organisms.

During the first week of your stay, we will do quite a bit of hiking with some informal outdoor lectures/discussions about the area in which we will be studying and working. We will also have some reading assignments of classic published literature on Tropical Forest Ecology. Articles from EO Wilson, Bates, and Dobzhansky just to name a few. We will also have some classroom time on basic biogeography, plate tectonics, ecological succession, and other ecological topics important to studying in a lowland wet forest of Costa Rica. Some of this will also be geared at learning to recognize some of the local fauna and flora.

In the second week, we will begin coursework on ecological sampling and statistics, especially as it relates to projects evaluating various measures of population and community ecology. This will include but wont be limited to sampling for insects, studying primates, sampling vegetation, bird surveys, sampling for reptiles, and hopefully some small mammal sampling. Essentially, this course will be a field ecology and natural history course focused about and in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

The last two weeks of the course will be focused on original field projects developed and conducted by the students. These projects will culminate in an on-site presentation to your classmates. As we approach the start of the class, I will contact students who have enrolled in this course, as well as any interested students, about preparing for the coursework.

Assessment/ Grading
Your final grade/mark will be based on the following, and determined out of a total of 100 points:
• field and Lab exercises (25 points) – 25%
• a written report of your project (50 points) – 50%
• an oral presentation of the project (25 points) – 25%
Coursework marking can be moderated to accommodate non-US marking systems.

Required Textbooks
The following books are essential for supplementary understanding of entomology and invertebrate ecology. They should be accessible through your university bookshop, and also on the internet at www.amazon.com.
• Chazdon, R.L., and T.C. Whitmore (Eds.). 2001. Foundations of Tropical Forest Biology: Classic Papers with Commentaries.
• Laurance, W.F., and R.O. Bierregaard. 1997. Tropical Forest Remnants: Ecology, Management, and Conservation of Fragmented Communities.
• Gotelli, N.J., and A.E. Ellison. 2004. A Primer Of Ecological Statistics.

Syllabus
Attendance is mandatory at all lectures, methodology talks and field exercises.
All full syllabus of times and dates of lectures, field work, laboratory time and projects will be available by emailing me at lbrandt@sfccmo.edu