Humans
and their environments
Professor Daniel H. Janzen, djanzen@sas.upenn.edu
http://condor.sas.upenn.edu/caterpillar/index.php
Department of
Biology BIO 140/440
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10 September 2009 |
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This
lecture course explores the interface of humans with their environments the
world over. The emphasis is on ways that they interface, though given that
this is a biology course, there is a strong biology bias. The topic is
enormous and examples are presented through 140-minute photographic essays
that are also on the course web site. The images are presented here for use
as course material and for extra-course learning by anyone with access to the
internet. The course is meant to stimulate examination of your (especially
biotic) environment and your connections with it. See
also http://media.sas.upenn.edu/user/view.php?id=12219
for recordings of lectures. |
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| Lectures, Fall Semester, 2009: | image menu | |
| (1) | Ants and Acacias: ecology and evolutionary biology of a mutualism - two stories: your professor, and biology | |
| (2) | The world is not colored green, but L-dopa, cocaine and cafeine. AND, biodiversity prospecting. | |
| (3) | Professor Brent Helliker, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, guest lecture:: Climate change: biology, sociology and economics | |
| (4) | Catharine Hoffman, your TA: how did she get here, what does she do, and what is her research | |
| (5) | "Rat attack" NOVA video - yellow journalism about a fascinating natural phenomenon; view video carefully and then read assigned paper "Why bamboos wait so long to flower" (get pdf from lecture 6 on course home page) | |
| (6) | Why do bamboos wait so long to flower? | |
| (7) | First mid-semester examination, 1.5 hours (covering through 29 September) and readings). | |
| (8) | Mimicry: population ecology, evolution, selection, phylogeny, taxonomy, perception and inference. | |
| (9) | The great green solar panel | |
| (10) | Professor Juan Carlos Castilla, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, guest lecture: Chilean Coastal Ecosystems: Humans as Super Key-stone Species | |
| (11) | Life on a small Caribbean island | |
| (12) | A day in the life of an African hunter. | |
| (13) | Socio-economics and biology of tropical timber harvest | |
| (14) | Pleistocene anachronisms: the plants the megafauna left behind. | |
| (15) | Second Mid-Semester Exam: 6 Oct through 27 Oct and readings. | |
| (16) | Movie: Paradise Reclaimed - history revisited, before the present | |
| (17) | Professor Mecky Pohlschroder, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, guest lecture: Microbes and humans, from the microbe point of view | |
| (18) | Professor Dorothy Cheney, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, guest lecture: Getting by with a little help from your friends: predation, infanticide, and stress in wild baboons | |
| (19) | Professor Josh Plotkin, Department of BIology, University of Pennsylvania, guest lecture: Evolutionary biology and ecology of influenza virus | |
| (20) | Biodiversity development: conservation through non-damaging use, a Costa Rican example; or Paradise Reclaimed today. | |
| (21) | Animals and their biotic environment: Liomys mice. | |
| (22) | Animals and their biotic environment: Rothschildia moths. | |
| (23) | Animals and their physical environment: beaver. | |
| (24) | View from the inside: the black bear and other assorted guts. | |
| (25) | What is a flower? | |
| (26) | What is a fruit and why does it rot? | |