• The Caribbean landscape: Climate, geochemistry, topography, and disturbance - hierarchical controls on landscape patterns.
• The tropic ecosystem: The role of temperature, light, nutrients, disturbance, and organisms in above and belowground ecosystems.
• The tropic flora: Identifying dominant families and key species. Evolution of the tropic flora.
• The tropic fuana: Unique birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles of Mona and Puerto Rico. Plant-animal interactions
• Plant community ecology: Identifying, sampling, and classifying plant communities. Understanding ecological controls on community composition.
• Soil ecology: Soil development and classification, ecosystem processes and soil organisms, soils and vegetation
• TEK - Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Understanding the landscape from local Inuit perspectives.
• Island biogeography: Islands as tools for the study of evolution and biodiversity.
• Human history and current affairs: We look at land use changes, archaeological sites, development pressures, and large scale human influences.

Other Skills

• Record Keeping: Recording strategies, quantitative/qualitative data, sketching, organization.
• Maps: Reading, interpretation, use in the field, map making, grid systems.
• Biogeographic Research: Research design, field study proposals, methods.