NRES 598: Microbial Ecology Methods

Fall 2009

Course Description:

Microbial Ecology is a synthesis of many scientific disciplines including microbiology, molecular biology, ecology, and bioinformatics. Soil microbial ecology is closely linked to ecosystem function and environmental quality. Without microorganisms, our productive soils would be depleted of fertility and buried under layers of litter, they would cease to support plant and animal life, and natural and synthetic chemicals would accumulate to toxic levels in the environment.

This field course is intended for graduate students interested the application of microbial ecology methods to their research on environmental quality and conservation. We will focus on a soil microbial ecology project for Fall 2009, but the methods that will be introduced are broadly applicable to a wide range of microbial ecology topics.

The course introduces students to methods involved with the study of microbial community structure and function. We will discuss both theory and application of various approaches for examining microbial communities.

Course topics include:

• Methods for sampling microbial communities
• Metabolic screening of microbial communities
• Molecular biology techniques (DNA extraction, PCR, DNA sequencing)
• Bioinformatics tools for interpretation of molecular biology data
• Experimental design
• Analysis of ecological data

Instructors:
Angela Kent

Class location and time:
M5 Turner Hall (basement)
9:00 - 11:00 Monday and Wednesday (lecture and lab)

S509 Turner Hall
9:00 - 10:00 Fridays (literature discussion)

CRN: 49928