GEOG 3270 - Biogeography: Global Patterns of Life

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of plants and animals across the Earth’s surface and throughout time. This course introduces students to these global patterns of distribution and the factors that determine these patterns. Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that combines concepts from ecology, evolutionary biology, geology, and physical geography and uses the perspectives and methodologies of geography. Topics will include biodiversity, the study of global patterns of biotic distributions, limiting factors to those distributions, patterns from past geologic times, conservation and management of living ecosystems, and island biogeography. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand and use biogeographical terminology; be able to map the distribution of and describe the Earth's major terrestrial biomes; and be able to ask biogeographical questions. Ultimately, students will gain a better understanding of the environment surrounding them.