Course Schedule

A week-by-week overview of the course schedule
During the course of the semester, class will meet weekly prior to and following the Thanksgiving week field trip to Baja California

Week 1 (Sept. 3): Introductions

• Personal introductions
• Since we ought to get to know each other each person will provide 30-60 second introduction of him or herself
• Review course goals
• This 2 credit course will engage ISU graduate students in field research and cultural experiences in the Sonoran Desert of Baja California, Mexico. Team-oriented research will include terrestrial and aquatic components and will encompass experimental design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation (visual and oral)
  
• An overview of the Baja trip itinerary can be found here
  
•  Student presentations
  
• Each student will develop special knowledge on a key topic(s)
• Students will share this knowledge with their classmates through PowerPoint-type presentations
  
• Presentations will be accompanied by a relevant reading assignment. Readings will be provided one week in advance and posted for download below (see Student Presentations)
  
• Two students will present per week, each given 30 minutes: 20 minutes for presentation, 10 minutes for discussion of selected paper. The person leading the paper discussion will be selected at random from the course as a whole.
  
• A list of potential weekly presentation topics will be made available to students. Topics and presentation dates will be assigned on a first come, first served basis
  
• A partial list of potential topics can be found here

• Required reading
• Students should order their own copy of John Steinbeck's Log from the Sea of Cortez

• We will spend approximately 15 minutes at the end of each week discussing this book, a classic of both American and Baja literature

Week 2 (Sept. 10): An Introduction to Baja California

Instructor John Nason will provide a broad introduction to Baja's natural environments, with special emphasis on regions to be visited during the Thanksgiving week trip.

• General features of the peninsula
• Rugged, mountainous landscape
• Significant mountain ranges
• 45 islands
• Large expanses of desert
• Major desert types

• Geological origins: where did Baja come from?
• Baja, past (140 Ma) to present

• Environmental history
• Quaternary effects on temperature and precipitation

• Meteorology
• Temperature, precipitation, and their seasonal and geographical variation
• Major phytogeographical regions
• Gulf, Vizcaino, Cape, etc.
• Environmental characteristics and dominant flora of each zone

Week 3 (Sept. 17): An Introduction to the Sea of Cortez and its Animal Life

Instructor Jeanne Serb will provide a introduction to the Sea of Cortéz with special emphasis on the animal life we will encounter in the course of our field trip.

• General and unique features of the Sea of Cortéz

• Geological origins
• Where did the Sea of Cortez come from?
• When was it formed?
  

• Animals of the Sea of Cortéz
  
• Major organismal groups
• Phylogenetic origins and relationships
• Form and developmental features of specific groups
  

Week 4 (Sept. 24): Student Presentations

Presenter 1:  Lindsey Altenhofen

• Topic:  Human Impacts on Baja
  
• Required reading:  Conservation and sustainable use of natural resources in Baja California: An overview
  

Presenter 2:  Mike Ervin

• Topic:  Biogeography of Baja Animals and Plants
  
• Required reading:  Nason JD et al (2002) Historical vicariance and postglacial colonization effects on the evolution of genetic structure in Lophocereus, a Sonoran desert columnar cactus. Evolution 56: 2214-2226.
  

Week 5 (Oct. 1): Student Presentations

Presenter 1: Anthony Beringer

• Topic:  Common Plants of Southern Baja
  

Presenter 2: Justin Rice

• Topic:  Lichens of Southern Baja: the Fog Deserts
  

Week 6 (Oct. 8): Student Presentations

Presenter 1:  Jeanine Refsnider

• Topic:  Birds of Baja
  

Presenter 2: Alvin Alejandrino

• Topic:  Oceanography of the Sea of Cortez
  

Week 7 (Oct. 15): Student Presentations

Presenter 1:  Ehsan Kayal

• Topic:  Marine Invertebrates of the Sea of Cortez
  

Presenter 2:  Autum Pairett

• Topic: Molluscs of Baja
  

Week 8 (Oct. 22): Student Presentations

Presenter 1:  Dan Gates

• Topic:  Biology of Figs and Fig Wasps
  

Presenter 2:  Irma Tapia

• Topic:  Desert Physiology: Adaptations Found in Plants and Animals
  

Week 9 (Oct. 29): Student Presentations

Presenter 1:  Janni Pedersen

• Topic: Mammals of Baja
  

Presenter 2:  Brad Duthie

• Topic:  The Life of John Steinbeck, Author of Log from the Sea of Cortéz
  

Week 10 (Nov. 5): Spatial Statistics 1

Instructor Nason will provide a short lecture and in class computer exercise related to the analysis of spatial data that will be collected during the course field trip.

• A simple test of the Nurse Plant Hypothesis

• Does recruitment of cardón, the world's largest columnar cactus, benefit from the micro-environment occurring under other shrubs and trees (often called nurse plants)?
• If so then then cardón should be spatially positively associated with the presence of woody cover.
  
• We will address this hypothesis in class using field collected data and satellite imagery (from Google Earth).
  
• Download data

Week 11 (Nov. 12): Spatial Statistics 2

Instructor Nason will provide a second short lecture and in class computer exercise related to the analysis of spatial data that will be collected during the course field trip.

• A spatial test for evidence of intra-specific competition
• Do cardón, which have shallow and broadly spreading root systems, compete with one another for available water to the extent that it affects their recruitment and survival?
• If so then individual cardón should be hyper-dispersed, i.e., spatially negatively associated with one another.
• We will address this hypothesis using the GPS locations of cardón plants and spatial statistical analysis (Ripley's K).
  

Week 12 (Nov. 19): Final Preparations for the Baja Trip

• Potential health "issues"
• Snakes, pokey plants, twisted ankles, Monteczuma's revenge, etc.
  

• Stuff to bring - what and how much
• Money/ATM, digital camera, clothes, other gear, passport, etc.
• More info can be found here
  

• Appropriate behavior

• Web access

• When and where to meet for transport to the Kansas City Airport
  

• Flight information

Weeks 13 & 14 (Nov 25. to Dec. 2): Baja!

• Itinerary in Mexico
• See course website's Trip Itinerary page

• Note: Class will not meet Wednesday, Dec. 3, owing to its proximity to our return from Baja
  

Weeks 15 & 16 (Dec. 10 & 17): Creating a Photo Gallery and Summaries of our Spatial Analyses

The following two activities constitute a course "final" of sorts...

• Creating a Photo Gallery
  
• Bring to class a zip file containing 10 or so of your favorite pictures from the Baja trip
• These photos will be used to construct a photo gallery on the course website
  
• Individual photos should be scaled so as to be approximately 100-150 kb in size so that they will load rapidly. For example, pics from my 5 megapixal camera are about 115 to 150 kb when saved at 600 dpi (max dimension)
• Your photos should be contained in a zip archive
• Bring your laptop for uploading your photos to the course website (and for the spatial data analysis described below)
• Summaries of our Spatial Analyses
• Using the statistical methods addressed in Weeks 10 and 11, we will analyze different aspects of the spatial distribution of cardón cacti, which will be summarized on the course website.
  
• The class will be divided into two groups each addressing a different but related class project:
• Project 1: One group of students will test the positive association of cardón plants with woody cover (the "Nurse Plant Hypothesis") (see Week 10)
  
• Project 2: A second group of students will test for departures from complete spatial randomness in the distributions of cardón plants relative to each other (see Week 11)
• Each group will have two class meetings in which to summarize their findings and present them as a formatted report on the course website.
  

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