Biology 1911: Honors Introductory Biology
Course Description: Introductory Biology is an undergraduate survey course designed for students who are interested in biology-related careers.  The course will cover a broad range of topics including ecology, evolution, biological diversity of plants and animals, physiology and conservation biology. We will begin our study by defining evolution, examining how it is studied, how new species are defined, and how life forms are classified.  We will then examine a number of different life forms at increasing levels of complexity. This will proceed from the microbes with their incredible metabolic diversity that sustains life on earth, through the Eukaryotes including their structure-function, reproduction, feeding strategies and distribution as well as strategies used by different organisms to adapt to their environments. Moving on to ecology and biodiversity, we will examine the interactions among all of these forms of life and how biological communities are organized. You will also be introduced to the emerging field of conservation biology where emphasis will be placed on understanding the basic priorities of conservation necessary to preserve the earth’s biodiversity. To compliment these investigations, there will be a series of reading assignments during the course of the semester that will come from popular science magazines, scientific review articles, and the primary literature. These readings will be the focus of weekly discussions in the class, and each student will complete a writing assignment on one of these topics during the course of the semester. These assignments and discussions will lend a broad and current perspective on the material learned in the class, provide students with an introduction to the primary literature of journal articles, and a better understanding of how scientific results are communicated to the public.

Seminar: Deep-Sea Biology
Description: This 3-credit seminar will cover a variety of different aspects of deep-sea biology. The course will begin with an overview of some of the classic problems in deep-sea biology and will continue through the subjects of ecology, physiology, genetics, biogeochemistry, and others. The exact topics to be covered will depend on the interests of the students in the class. The seminar discussion will be led by one of the students in the class, with each student leading the discussion during one of the weekly meetings. The journal articles discussed will be chosen by the student leading the presentation in consultation with Dr. Cordes. During the discussion, we will come to a consensus about one aspect of the manuscript that could be improved. Each of the students will then write a revised version of this section of the paper. These will be reviewed by Dr. Cordes and will also be peer reviewed by one of the other students in the class. The goal of this exercise is to have the students write each section of a scientific manuscript by the end of the semester.

Seminar: Community Ecology
Description:  In this seminar we will examine current theory in community ecology. The focus will be on how the recently developed theoretical framework of metacommunity dynamics. The seminar will begin with an overview of this theory and some background papers and proceed through some demonstrations of how it has been applied to different types of communities. There will be a different, recent journal article discussed each week with the papers chosen, and discussions led by the students in the course.

Biology 3196: Experimental Marine Biology
Description: Introduction to research methods and the analysis of data from marine systems. Lectures emphasize the biological and physical interactions that structure intertidal and subtidal marine communities. Field trips and a research project are followed by writing a paper in scientific journal style. Note that there are several required field trips.

Biology 2904: Marine Ecology
Description: A survey of the concepts of aquatic ecology in estuarine and marine ecosystems, emphasizing the organization and maintenance of the major aquatic communities in response to the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the environment, modes of energy transfer, physiological adaptation, life history characteristics, and functional morphology. Laboratory exercises stress comparative measurement of biological diversity in the marine environment. NOTE: One or more field trips required.