Topics in Tropical Asian Forestry: technology meets conservation
Applications for full scholarships are now being accepted until Nov. 15, 2013!
Please download this file. Fill it in and submit it to <titaf2014@gmail.com>.
=== Full course description is below
Topics in Tropical Asian Forestry: technology meets conservation
Course description ::
Deforestation in Asia is progressing at a faster rate than any other
tropical area, reducing natural forest cover to its lowest level in the
Quaternary Period. A variety of modern technologies have been developed
that can accelerate and invigorate conservation. This course will focus
on how nascent techniques can be used to monitor change in habitats and
biodiversity. We will investigate technological and analytical advances
in tropical conservation before developing a group project to implement
these methods to monitor species richness or biotic interactions. We
expect that group projects will result in at least one multi-authored
publication.
The course will
consist of two parts: an online lecture/discussion course in Spring 2014
and a four week field course in June 2014 at the Xishuangbanna Tropical
Botanical Garden (XTBG) in Yunnan, China, a research institute in the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. All travel and accommodation expenses will
be paid for 18 graduate students from any graduate degree granting
institution in the U.S.A. or tropical Asia, funded by the US National
Science Foundation. An additional 12 mainland Chinese graduate students
will be funded by the Chinese Natural Science Foundation.
Instructors :: Chuck Cannon David Lohman
Texas Tech University & City College of New York
Chinese Academy of Sciences City University of New York
www.ecologicalevolution.org www.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/lohman/
Online course ::
Students will watch lecture videos online prior to participating in a
guided discussion that will meet online once a week in Spring 2014
(February – May). Students will form partnerships with classmates and
perform research projects on specific regions of the Asian tropics.
Given the ease of web-based global communication, the students will be
expected to develop proficiency in communicating with peers across
technological, geographical, and cultural boundaries. Guest lecturers
for the course include Richard CORLETT (XTBG), Rhett HARRISON (Kunming
Institute of Botany), Erik MEIJAARD (People and Nature Consulting),
Douglas SHEIL (Director, Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation), Cam
WEBB (Arnold Arboretum/Harvard), and Jianchu XU (Chief Scientific
Officer, ICRAF/China).
Field course :: The Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (http://english.xtbg.cas.cn/)
has been performing scientific research and providing agro-forestry
outreach and training for over 50 years in the remote southwestern
corner of China, near the borders of Laos and Myanmar. With an active
community of international scientists and graduate students, XTBG is a
leading ecological and botanical research institute in the Chinese
Academy of Sciences. All students enrolled in the course will travel to
XTBG in June 2014 to participate in field training, taxon-specific
survey techniques, and to complete one or more group projects. Several
guest lecturers from the online course will also give presentations
during the field the course, including additional lecturers, e.g. HE
Fangliang (Ualberta), LUO Shu-jin (Peking U.) and others.
When/where: 4 weeks in June-July 2014 at XTBG, Yunnan, China
To apply, please visit one of the following sites: http://www.pfs-tropasia.org/ or http://www.ecologicalevolution.org/training/). Download, fill out, and submit the provided spreadsheet to titaf2014@gmail.com. The deadline for applications is November 15, 2013. If you have any questions about the course, please email chuck.cannon@ttu.edu or dlohman@ccny.cuny.edu.
