Course Description:
This course will focus on the changing distributions of plant and animal species (and of other organisms) on Earth, and on the biological, physical, and cultural processes that have brought about these distribution patterns.
Human impacts on biotic distributions and biodiversity and the application of biogeographic information and principles to conservation will also be considered.
Recommended background: Introductory physical geography or coursework in biology or ecology.
Central Learning Objectives:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Geography 435 is a Global Challenge Course in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Students pursuing a major in the College and following the curriculum from 2015–2016 or later need one global challenge course.
Here is why Geography 435 satisfies the requirement (this is text I wrote when I proposed the course as a global change course in 2014):
Humans depend for survival on Earth’s biosphere, and always have.
People use plant and animal species for food, clothing, medicine, and in other ways, and through the use and manipulation of biotic resources change landscape, ecosystems, and the species themselves.
Human population growth and changes in human use of Earth’s ecosystems have imperiled many plant and animal species and habitats, reducing the biodiversity that sustains us.
Geography 435 focuses on the distribution of biological species and diversity and how patterns have changed over time, with particular attention to how human actions and changes in both natural and anthropogenic climate change drive changes in ecosystems
and in the abundance and distribution of species.
The course meets the global challenges requirement because it addresses the historic origins of, and contemporary thought regarding, issues of habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and climate change impacts on the biosphere that affect human society.
These issues are of transnational and increasingly international significance, as for example in the case of invasive plant and animal species that destroy forests of irreplaceable economic and ecological value, as we are seeing today with invasive species
in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or that devastate agricultural crops or human health.
Another example is the shrinking distribution of coastal mangrove communities, which protect people who live along tropical coasts from the impacts of hurricanes yet are often removed to develop hotels or fish ponds.
Geography 435 provides students with opportunity for focused inquiry into critical issues facing the biosphere and hence our own survival.
Geography 435 is part of
three Connections Packages that satisfy degree requirements in the College
of Arts and Sciences: (1) Humans Living on a Dynamic Earth, (2) Biodiversity and Humans, and (3) Environment and Society.