Curso: Tropical Butterfly Ecology

Organization of Tropical Studies
www.ots.duke.edu
May 14-28, 2010

This 2-week course is for advanced graduate students interested in conducting tropical field studies on butterflies. The course will focus on the Costa Rican Atlantic rainforest fauna, and include work at the La Selva Biological Station and the Tirimbina Biological Reserve both sites share a diverse assemblage of Neotropical butterflies, including many species that extend well into South America.

The major thrust of this course will be natural history and identification of butterfly adults and early stages. We will focus on behavior, diversity, ecological and evolutionary patterns, symbiotic associations, ecophysiology, quantitative sampling techniques, experimental design, and as well, the pleasures of conducting research on tropical insects.

The course combines lectures, hands-on field exploration, and major efforts on the part of students to understand and apply quantitative observational and sampling procedures in the field. The course will stress developing rigorous natural history questions from field observations.

Faculty: Dr. Phil DeVries, University of New Orleans
Dr. Bruce Walsh, University of Arizona
Guest faculty:
Isidro Chacon, Costa Rica National Museum and National Biodiversity Institute (INBIO)

Dates: May 14-28, 2010
Application Deadline: February 16, 2010 for priority admission followed by open enrollment until filled.
Tuition: OTS consortium applicants - $2,000; non-member applicants $2,500

Partial need-based scholarships are available; priority given to OTS consortium and Latin American applicants.

Students: graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and other interested professionals

For More information: consult the OTS website at www.ots.duke.edu or contact barbara.lewis@ots.ac.cr, jbwalsh@email.arizona.edu