Requirements for the M.A. Degree in Ecology and Evolution

Concentration in Applied Ecology

The Concentration in Applied Ecology provides students with a strong foundation in ecological principles and the quantitative tools necessary for sound assessment of environmental issues. This training is valuable in environmental planning, resource use and regulation, conservation biology and data analyses for decision makers in government and the private sector.

Required Graduate Courses:

1. Principles of Applied Ecology and Evolution (4 cr.)
2. Applied Ecology and Conservation Biology Laboratory (3 cr.)
3. Mathematical Methods in Population Biology (3 cr.)
4. Landscape Ecology Laboratory (3 cr.) or Ecology Laboratory (3 cr.)
5. Biometry (4 cr.)

Electives include:

1. Molecular Diversity Laboratory (3 cr.)
2. Population Genetics and Evolution (3 cr.)
3. Environmental Toxicology and Public Health (3 cr.)
4. Environmental Law and Regulation (3 cr.)
5. Introduction to Ecological Modeling (3 cr.)
6. Principles of Evolution (4 cr.)

Concentration in Applied Evolution

In recent years, there has been growing recognition that what had previously been considered to be strictly ecological problems often have a significant evolutionary dimension. Environmental impacts often reduce the size of populations (the ecological component) but may also result in evolutionary changes within the impacted populations that adversely affect human welfare (e.g., evolution of antibiotic or pesticide resistance), reduce the sustainability of vulnerable populations, or their value to humans (e.g., higher levels of inbreeding, loss of genetic variability and valuable genetic traits). Evolutionary principles are also regularly applied in biotechnology, forensics, agricultural, pharmaceutical, and biomedical fields, and especially to problems of genome and protein sequence analysis.

Required Graduate Courses:

1. Principles of Applied Ecology and Evolution (4 cr.)
2. Population Genetics and Evolution (3 cr.) or an equivalent approved by the Program Director
3. Computational Biology (3 cr.) or AMS 533 - Numerical Methods and Algorithms in Computational Biology (3 cr.)
4. Molecular Diversity Laboratory (3 cr.)
5. Biometry (4 cr.)

Electives include:

1. Mathematical Methods in Population Biology (3 cr.)
2. Applied Ecology and Conservation Biology Laboratory (3 cr.)
3. Principles of Ecology (4 cr.)
4. Molecular Modeling of Biological Molecules (3 cr.)
5. Quantitative Genetics (3 cr.)
6. Human Evolution (4 cr.)
7. Primate Evolution (4 cr.)
8. Vertebrate Evolution (4 cr.)
9. Molecular Genetics (3 cr.)