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Scheffers Teaching at UF and abroad

The Ecology of Climate Change

The Ecology of Climate Change provides a broad overview of patterns and processes in climate change science. Students gain an understanding of how climate change as well as other human disturbances impact ecological processes from the smallest gene to largest ecosystem level. We focus on observed impacts rather than predicted impacts.

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Tropical Ecology and Climate Change

The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to the tropical rain forest environment, community structure, composition, interaction, biodiversity and ecosystem function. During this course, we will explore one of the biologically richest places on Earth by learning the ecology of the high páramoand mid-elevation cloud rainforests and down to the lowland Amazonian rainforests. We will learn about the core processes that drive the biodiversity of this region while discussing the main environmental issues, mainly climate change and habitat loss, associated with the conservation of natural ecosystems in tropical developing countries. It is designed to develop a broad range of practical and intellectual skills including; hypothesis testing, experimental design, collecting and analyzing field data and collaborative/group work.

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The Amphibians of the SE USA

The core objective of this course is to inspire a curiosity for understanding the planet’s amphibians and to provide practical information that will help wildlife professionals understand the region’s amphibian community. To help narrow the scope of this vast topic, we focus the course materials on the taxonomy, life history and conservation sections of this course on amphibians from the southeastern United States. However, we still broadly discuss the diversity of amphibians in terms of their ecologies (associated with morphology, physiology, behavior, life-cycle processes, etc.), with examples from across the globe. We use lectures to provide a broad conceptual overview of the diversity of amphibians form of function and to discuss how different amphibian forms are influenced by and interact with the environment (e.g. ecology and conservation). We will then use labs to focus on the life history, ecology and taxonomy of different amphibian orders, with an emphasis on regional taxa.

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