WIS6425 | Carrion Ecology and Evolution
- Grading and Max Credits: Graduate Catalog Info WIS6425
Course Description
Carrion Ecology and Evolution includes a range of organisms including molecular, bacterial, fungal, invertebrate, and vertebrate communities. Intra & interspecific interactions related to population biology, community ecology, & processes that manifest into habitats and ecosystems will be addressed. A multidisciplinary view of organisms will provide the basis for understanding decomposition.
Course Objectives
At the successful completion of this course, students should be able to
- Explain the processes and mechanisms of death of vertebrate carrion.
- Define carrion ecology and evolution and explain where these areas of biology fit into the biological hierarchy, and within spatial and temporal scales.
- Identify and discuss ecological mechanisms of carrion decomposition within various habitats.
- Explain the evolutionary ecology of carrion decomposition in terms of population and microbial genetics.
- Design and analyze a field study in carrion ecology.
- List and explain the types of interactions between and among species and the ecological and evolutionary effects of these interactions on carrion decomposition.
- Outline the different terrestrial, aquatic and interkingdom ecological interactions of carrion decomposition and provide examples of the species involved in these interactions.
- Articulate the applications of carrion decomposition from management and conservation perspectives but also from a forensic viewpoint.
- Explain the frontiers to carrion ecology and evolution and where the field will be in the future.
Courses
- Applied Wildlife Forensic Genetics
- Aquatic Animal Pathology & Forensic Science
- Bird Language
- Carrion Ecology and Evolution
- Conservation Medicine
- Environmental Risk Assessment of Veterinary Drugs
- Forensic DNA Statistics and Applied Population Genetics
- Forensic Science for Conservation Biology
- Human and Wildlife Conflict
- International Wildlife Conservation Law, Policy and Ethics
- Introduction to Applied Statistics for Agricultural and Life Science
- Negative and Suboptimal Research Findings in Wildlife Forensics
- Pro Communication in Wildlife Forensic Sciences
- Research Problems in Wildlife and Range Sciences (Supervised Research)
- Topics in Geographic Information Systems (GIS Fundamentals)
- U.S. Wildlife Law, Policy and Ethics
- Wildlife Crime Scene Processing
- Wildlife Forensic Pathology
- Wildlife Forensics Internship
- Wildlife Toxicology: The Ecohealth Perspective
- Wildlife Tracks and Sign
- Working Dogs in Conservation and Forensic Science