[Coral-List] Coral Reef Ecology summer course at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences

[Samantha dePutron]

****The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) is pleased to announce a Coral Reef Ecology field course offering in Bermuda in July 2009.

Places are still available. Deadline has been extended until March 31st, 2009. 

If using the online application please also email education at bios.edu to inform that you have sent an application in. 

Course dates: 12 July to 1 August, 2009
Course instructor: Dr. Samantha de Putron, BIOS
Qualifications:  Open to undergraduates and graduate students with strong academic credentials, and to teachers and professionals.  The course is open only to SCUBA divers.
Application deadline: March 13, 2009 for first round of admissions and scholarship decisions. Later applications will also receive consideration on a space-available basis.

Scholarships and financial aid AVAILABLE and are based on academic background/performance and demonstrated need. Full scholarships are rare and only available in exceptional circumstances. We encourage students to apply for other sources of funding that BIOS can supplement or match. Travel and SCUBA equipment are NOT included under any circumstance. Some scholarships and financial aid are open to all nationalities. We particularly encourage Canadian and UK students to apply, as there are specific funding sources for these students. 

More information of the Coral Reef Ecology summer course is below and also can be found at: http://www.bios.edu/education/coral_reef_ecology.html 

Application form available at:  http://www.bios.edu/education/scapp.html 

For further information please contact: education at bios.edu


Course summary:

The Coral Reef Ecology summer course at BIOS exposes the student to the reef ecosystem at all organizational levels, from physiological ecology through population biology, community structure to ecosystem dynamics, and ends with consideration of human impacts and climate change. The course has a large practical component, and the field surveys along with complementary laboratory analysis provide training in many techniques commonly used in coral reef research. 

The integrated course is comprised of lectures, required reading, laboratory exercises and field surveys.  The lectures cover a broad range of relevant topics in coral reef ecology that are supplemented by readings from the primary literature with attention given to active areas of research. The course is divided into 20 lectures (1 to 1.25 hours long), 9 field trips (4 hours each), 6 lab sessions (4-5 hours each), 6 precepts (1 hour each), 3 or 4 seminars by BIOS scientists on current research, a take home written exam, and an afternoon of oral presentations. An additional 10-15 hours is taken to complete the working-group analyses and presentations. 
 
The lab work is focused on training in practical techniques: 
• separation of coral tissue from skeleton 
• fractionation by centrifugation
• enumeration of zooxanthellae with a haemocytometer
• chlorophyll analysis
• determination of coral surface area 
• coral growth determination using a buoyant weighing technique
 
Various field techniques and subsequent lab analyses are used repetitively at different sites so that each student has the opportunity to become familiar with the following methods:
• video-taping of reef transects to assess community structure
• quantification of reef fish community structure using a visual census method
• quadrat sampling of reef algae, sorting, identification and dry weight biomass estimation
• quadrat sampling and measurement of juvenile corals to construct size/frequency curves
• quantification of parrotfish and surgeonfish feeding rates and social interactions
 
The laboratory and field work are synthesized as final oral presentations that are based on a typical format for presenting scientific results to an audience and so are designed to provide experience in communicating science. 
 

-- 
Dr Samantha de Putron
Assistant Research Scientist, Senior Lecturer

Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences
Ferry Reach
St Georges
GE 01
Bermuda
Tel: +441 297 1880 ext 724
Fax: +441 297 8143
www.bios.edu/research/coralintro.html