Welcome to IB 496: Tropical Forest Ecology

This course will be offered to undergraduate students (max enrollment 14 students) in the Fall semester 2022. We will meet for one hour every week in the second half of the semester (scheduled class time TBD based on your schedules). In early January we will fly to Panama and spend 12 days visiting an array of spectacular sites for a “behind the scenes” tour of research sites managed by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution (STRI). Along the way we will learn about the principal threats to the conservation and management of tropical ecosystems, cutting-edge research, and the theories that have been developed to explain how tropical diversity originated, is maintained and is distributed.

Highlights include:

• ‘glide’ through the forest canopy in a gondola beneath the Parque Metropolitano canopy access crane

• early morning bird watching in Soberania National Park

• take a boat trip down the Panama Canal to visit Barro Colorado Island, the most famous tropical research station in the world and hike to 50 ha forest dynamics plot

• visit the Galeta marine lab and town of Portabello on the Caribbean coast of Panama to learn about mangrove and estuarine ecosystems

• two days exploring lower montane forest – one of the tropics most endangered habitats – at the Fortuna Forest Reserve in western Panama

• hike through montane forest from 1700 to 2700 m elevation on the slopes of the Baru volcano, Panama’s tallest mountain and see spectacular oak forests

• learn how the some of the world’s most expensive coffee is grown and processed in Boquete by the owners of Finca La Esmeralda

Requirements and Costs:

This class is for School of Integrative Biology undergraduates. Costs of the course are heavily subsidized by the school. We are also endeavouring to make the class as affordable as possible (no fancy meals and dorm-style accommodation!). Logistics and in country safety and security support is provided by the Smithsonian Institution who are hosting our visit