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Lecture: T,
R 11:15 am - 12:30 pm
252 Ag. Engr.
Schedule No. 898896
Objectives: To survey the extraordinary breadth of chemically-mediated interactions among animals, plants and their environments, and provide students with basic skills to solve fundamental problems in chemical ecology.
Structure: Chemical signals are used to find food, mates and to intra- and interspecifically space individuals relative to resources and hazards. Plants and animals are also defended against enemies and each other by discrete chemical arsenals. Chemical and molecular ecology is among the fastest-growing and rapidly evolving environmental subdiscipline.
A combination of lectures and student-led discussion of pioneering journal articles will be used in the course. Despite the "insects" in the title, the course is a broader introduction to chemical ecology, with a wider range of topics shaped to some degree by student interest. Topics addressed will include a survey of major classes of natural products used in organismal communication and defense, host finding behavior, chemoreception mechanisms, animal and plant coevolution, marine chemical ecology, pollination ecology, symbiosis, tritrophic interactions, induced responses, detoxification strategies for bioactive chemicals, allelopathy, signal and hormonal interactions, sociochemicals, pharmacognosy and human chemoecology. Special guest instructor(s) will bring to the course their creative expertise in allied topics of chemical ecology. Chemical interactions among organisms ranging from unicellular to complex plant and animal communities will be explored. The chemical basis of plant-herbivore interactions will be a major focus of this course, emphasizing the rich diversity of insect examples, which comprise 80% of the chemical ecology literature on animals.
Students will be evaluated by performance on an exam(s) and in student-led discussions that include a term paper. The content of this course is directed to biological, chemical and molecular scientists interested in exploring biotic interactions with chemistry.
Text: Schoonhoven, L.M., T. Jermy and J.J.A. van Loon. 1998. Insect-Plant Biology. Chapman & Hall.