Summer Field Course in Conservation Biology, with an Emphasis on Amphibians and Reptiles.
A field course in Conservation Biology will be offered at the Lakeside Laboratory from June 2nd to June 27th 2008. Lakeside Lab is located in Northwestern Iowa, along the intersection, from east to west, between the Eastern Deciduous Forest and Great Plains, and along the intersection, from north to south, between the recently glaciated Lakes Region and the older, better drained, and more variable stream systems associated with Missouri and Mississippi River uplands. A combination laboratory and field course, Conservation Biology examines the history of the Upper Midwest from the retreat of the latest glaciers to the present day. Northwest Iowa is a landscape of lakes, wetlands, prairie, and oak savannah; it is also a place of intense agriculture, an area of concentrated summer tourism, and it hosts a wind farm. In this context, native ecosystems will be compared against altered ecosystems, and the processes of restoration will be measured against these extremes. Students will participate in a habitat restoration and should bring rugged clothing, sturdy boots, heavy canvas gloves, and a hard hat. The herpetofauna of this area is well known. Highlights include the turn-of the-century (19th to 20th) commercial collections of 20 million leopard frogs/yr, the pioneering surveys of Frank Blanchard in the 1920s, and more recent findings that bear on the global problems of amphibian malformations and declines. We will visit the only known prairie rattlesnake populations in Iowa. For information about Lakeside Lab (soon to be updated for 2008) see: http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/lakesidelab/ For more information about the course, contact Mike Lannoo at: Michael J. Lannoo. Ph.D Professor, Anatomy and Cell Biology Indiana University School of Medicine - TH Holmstedt Hall, Rm 135, ISU Terre Haute IN 47809 812-237-2059 email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
