BIO 5071 - Conservation and Restoration Biology

As famously described by Vitousek et al. (1997), humans now dominate earth’s ecosystems because our collective activities have altered the composition and patterns of landscapes with impacts on biodiversity, habitats, natural resources and biogeochemical cycles. The fields of conservation and restoration biology emerged in the 1980s in response to the growing recognition that humans have initiated the 6th mass extinction of life on Earth. At a fundamental level, conservation biology includes the study of the multivariate causes of declines in biodiversity, the problems associated with biodiversity loss, and the scientific and socio-cultural responses needed to prevent species from going extinct and conserve their populations and habitats.

By necessity, conservation biology is an interdisciplinary field of study because understanding the complex relationships among humans, other species and the environment requires knowledge gained from a wide range of disciplines, including ecology, genetics, geography, soils and chemistry as well as political science, sociology, economics and anthropology. In this course we will emphasize applying ecological theories to the practice of protecting and restoring populations and ecosystems.

This course is reading and discussion intensive. Faculty lectures will constitute a lesser part of class time and will mostly be used to illustrate concepts and topics covered in the reading with case studies, diagrams, images and methodologies. Students will be expected to present literature readings in the class and lead discussions on those topics.