BIO 217T Extreme Ecosystems (Iceland)
This course explores the various ways in which plants, animals, and microorganisms are able to survive extreme habitat conditions with respect to temperature, salinity, light, water availability, physical disturbances and so forth. Throughout the semester, students will look at a variety of extreme ecosystems of the Earth ranging from the Sahara Desert to Icelandic hot springs and from tidal mudflats in northern Europe to the depth of the Mariana trench. For each ecosystem, students will first identify the challenges that organisms living there must be able to face, and then, through the lenses of evolution, will investigate how organisms cope with these challenges. Tentatively, the travel component of this course will take place in Iceland, where students will be able to see and study first-hand ecosystems with extreme conditions with respect temperature, light, alkalinity (hot springs), and physical disturbance (tidal shores and volcanos).