This course is offered at the Semester in Environmental Science (SES) Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Students accepted into the SES Program will take this course.
The microbiology techniques commonly used to study microbes affecting human health are often ineffective for the study of microbes in natural ecosystems. Lectures in this course will present the scientific rationale behind a number of methods used by microbial ecologists. In the laboratory, students will work with the latest techniques to measure microbial biomass, activity, extracellular enzymes, biogeochemistry and species diversity. These methods include epifluorescence microscopy, radioisotopic tracers for bacterial production, fluorescent substrates, hydrogen sulfide and methane production, and molecular probes for classes of bacteria. Students may use these techniques in concurrent independent research projects. This course is an elective offered to students who enroll in the Semester in Environmental Science (SES) Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Students who participate in the SES Program may count ENVS 260 and ENVS 270 as two upper-level courses with labs towards the Biology major (subject to the limit that no more than two courses outside of the Rhodes Biology program may be applied to the major), but BIOL 280 will count only as elective credits in Biology (this course may not count as one of the six upper-level Biology courses required for the major).