This lecture course is offered to undergraduate students interested in learning more about ecosystem ecology and how stable isotopes at natural abundance levels are used as integrators, tracers, and recorders in environmental, ecological, and human biology studies. The focus of the course will span from molecules to ecosystems and will include animal, plant, and microbe studies.
















Course Outline

... 28-Aug Introduction to course and web materials
Lecture 1 2-Sept Concepts and natural variations in isotope abundance
Lecture 2 4-Sept Analytical approaches to measuring stable isotopes (lab trip)
Evaluating the water cycle and human impacts on water
Lecture 3 9-Sept Precipitation (or why is water in Hawaii heavier than in Utah?)
Lecture 4 11-Sept Streams, lakes, and groundwater (nature's gradient)
Lecture 5 16-Sept Where do plants get their water from?
Lecture 6 18-Sept Evaportation processes in plants and animals
Biological aspects of the carbon cycle
Lecture 7 23-Sept Photosynthesis and ecophysiological constraints (learning recorder rules)
Lecture 8 25-Sept Ecological gradients impact carbon isotope distributions (environment integrators)
Lecture9 30-Sept Carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems (a beautiful natural tracer)
... 30-Sept Problem Set due September 30th (submitted as PDF via WebCT)
Interpreting the nitrogen cycle and human impacts on nitrogen
Lecture 10 2-Oct Plants and microbes (and the impacts of fertilzers on ecosystems)
Lecture 11 7-Oct Nitrogen dynamics in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
... 9-Oct Examination One (download data to prepare for exam - WebCT)
Diet and trophic level dynamics
Lecture 12 21-Oct "You are what you eat": isotopes and animal diet (AKA - "Your mother was right!")
Lecture 13 23-Oct Nitrogen isotopes as indicators of trophic feeding levels (AKA - carnivores revealed)
Lecture 14 28-Oct Carbonates and enamels as dietary and environmental recorders
Assessing landscape to global-scale ecosystem processes
Lecture 15 30-Oct Carbon dioxide and the carbon cycle (AKA - an inconvenient truth)
Lecture 16 4-Nov Carbon cycles in oceans (where all is revealed)
Lecture 17 6-Nov Biosphere-atmosphere fluxes and water stress (how we identify sinks and sources)
Environmental reconstruction and global changes
Lecture 18 11-Nov Short term: tree rings as terrestrial recorders (let nature record environmental history)
Lecture 19 13-Nov Long term: ice cores and carbonates (climate records for the last 600 million years)
Stable isotopes in keratin record movements of animals
Lecture 20 18-Nov Spatial analysis and reconstructing migration in birds (where did they come from?)
Lecture 21 20-Nov Spatial analyses of microbes - food, locations, histories
... 25-Nov Examination Two (download data to prepare for exam - WebCT)
Lecture 22 2-Dec Spatial analyses of mammal movements - from whales to elephants
Stable isotopes in human ecology
Lecture 23 4-Dec Ancestral and modern human diets and commerce patterns (anthropology lives!)
Now its your turn!!
... 9-Dec Student PowerPoint Presentations
... 11-Dec Student PowerPoint Presentations

Printable Outline