Corso in Coral Reef Ecology - Bermuda

Places are still available for this summer's coral reef ecology course at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. Scholarship and financial aid available. Application deadline April 22nd.

Summer Course in Coral Reef Ecology

The Bermuda Biological Station for Research is pleased to announce a course in Coral Reef Ecology. Course instructor: Dr. Samantha de Putron.

Course dates: 9-29 July
Location: Bermuda
Qualifications: Open to undergraduates and graduate students with strong academic credentials. The course is open only to divers.

Additional details: http://www.bbsr.edu/Education/summercourses/cre/cre.html
Scholarship and financial aid available

Course summary:
The Coral Reef Ecology course at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research 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 24 lectures, 9 field trips (4 hours each), 5 lab sessions (4-5 hours each), 3 evening lab discussion sessions, a morning written exam, an afternoon of oral presentations and an afternoon discussion session/debate on a current topic. An additional 10-15 hours is taken to complete the working-group analyses and presentations.

The course is aimed towards upper undergraduates and graduate students.

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 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.