Biodiversity has many aspects indeed. Staff of Naturalis will teach two aspects during this course. The most diverse group of animals on earth, insects, will be the topic of the first part. The second part is devoted to time, the dimension that made present biodiversity possible. In other words, the story of the history of life on earth as told by fossils.
Entomology
Insect species represent about 50 percent of all described organisms. The diversity of forms in insects, and the key innovations that made the success of insects possible, are the guidelines of this course.
Lectures and practical training are both included. Naturalis staff members of the department of entomology will present overviews of insect orders in phylogenetic and ecological perspective, while some orders, viz. Odonata, Orthoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and Coleoptera, will get special attention.
Some topics of the practical training are (i) collecting insects with various methods, (ii) identification of collected material to insect order, (iii) identification of some specimens of different orders to species level, (iv) morphological comparison (text and illustrations) of three specimens of one insects order, including phylogenetic interpretation, (v) comparison of results of (iv) between two insects orders (multi-student task), (vi) preparing a critical summary of a recent scientific paper on insect phylogeny. Students will be asked to give a short presentation of their results as well.
Advanced equipment is available to study and illustrate the objects, including a scanning electron microscope and an auto-imaging microscope, although more traditional methods to prepare illustrations, such as camera lucida, are also used.
Co?nator: Jan van Tol, Museum Naturalis, Leiden / 071 – 568 7606 / tol@naturalis.nl
Palaeobiology
Life on earth has a history of billions of years. The last 550 million years the development of life on earth has been amply documented by fossils. The course will focus on different aspects of working with these fossils.
Like entomology, the palaeobiology course will be given both in lectures and in practical work. Both in the theory and in the practical training the following topics will be addressed: (i) basic principles of stratigraphy/what is time? (ii) a broad overview of the history of life on earth (iii) key evolutionary innovations in vertebrates (iv) succession of different plant communities over time (v) the development of flora provinces (vi) the use of fossils in reconstructing the palaeoenvironment (vii) the use of databases in palaeontology.
During the various aspect of palaeobiology will be exemplified with fossils from all over the world.
Co?nator: Lars van den Hoek Ostende, Museum Naturalis, Leiden / 071 – 568 7685 / Hoek@Naturalis.nl
Coordinator
drs. Jan van Tol (Naturalis) tol@naturalis.nl
dr. Lars van den Hoek Ostende (Naturalis) hoek@naturalis.nl
Application
Master students are welcome
Via registration forms