ESTUARINE ECOLOGY (4 credits)
Course Number: 16:215:506
Introduction - Fall 2002

INSTRUCTORS:

TEXTBOOKS:
The textbooks for this course are as follow. These can be purchased at many good bookstores:

• Field Guide to the Atlantic Seashore, by Kenneth L. Gosner. In the Peterson Field Guide Series. Houghton-Mifflin Publ.
• Field Guide to the Atlantic Coast Fishes, by C.R. Robbins and G.C. Ray. Houghton-Mifflin Publ.
• General marine and estuarine reference texts include the following:
  • Fishes of the Chesapeake Bay, by Samuel F. Hildebrand and William C. Schroeder. 1928. Bull. U.S. Bureau Fisheries, Vol. 43, Part I, 399 pp.
  • Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, by Henry B. Bigelow and William C. Schroeder. 1953. Fish. Bull. of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Vol. 53, 577 pp.
  • Fishes: An Introduction to Ichthyology, by Peter B. Moyle and Joseph J. Cech, Jr. 1982. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, NJ.
  • Marine Ecology, by Jeffrey S. Levinton. 1982. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliff, N.J. 07632
  • Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach, by James W. Nybakken. 1982. Harper & Row, Publishers, New York.
• General References for Preparation of Manuscripts
  • Day, R.A. 1979. How to write and publish a scientific paper. ISI Press, Philadelphia.
  • Hansen, M.J. 2002. Reviewer rights and responsibilities. Fisheries 27(10):32-33.
  • Hunter, J. (ed.) 1990. Writing for Fishery Journals. American Fisheries Society, Maryland.
  • Style manual for biological journals. 2nd ed. 1964. Committee on form and style of the conference of biological editors. Amer. Inst. Biol. Sci., Washington, D.C.
  • Utter, F. 2002. Some Accumulated Perspectives on Writing and Editing. Fisheries 27(8):34-35.
  • Woodford, F.R. (ed.) 1968. Scientific writing for graduate students. A council of Biology Editors Manual. Rockefeller Univ. Press, New York.

FORMAT
This course will be strongly oriented toward field studies during the warmer, first half of the semester. In fact, several overnight field trips may be necessary. The details of these trips will be discussed at our first meeting and as planning proceeds. During the semester, each student will conduct an independent research project. A research report will be prepared in the style of a journal article. You will need to begin your report within the first two weeks of the semester, and plan to finish all of the field work by the middle of October. An abstract of the report will be distributed to all students prior to an oral presentation. In addition, we will be reading selected papers that deal with contemporary issues in estuarine ecology. Students will be required to lead discussions of these papers. All presentations will be evaluated by your peers and the instructors. The grade for this course will be determined from an evaluation of your final research report (75% of grade), presentations (15%) and participation (10%), both in the field and in the discussions.

PLEASE NOTE: The course called MARINE ANIMAL ECOLOGY or its equivalent is recommended as a prerequisite to this course. If you have not taken a course in marine biology or fish biology, be sure to inform the instructor of this immediately.

FIELD TRIPS
In the tradition of field ecologists, we will generally go on field trips as scheduled, except perhaps in the case of a hurricane. You can expect to get wet on any field trip. To this end, it is suggested that you always bring adequate field gear. The minimum that you will need: boots or old sneakers, shorts, raincoat, change of dry clothes, hat and/or sunscreen, sunglasses, clipboard and notepad. On overnight trips you will need to bring a sleeping bag and overnight bag.

Date Activity

6 Sept. Introduction to course.
Individual decisions concerning research projects.

13 Sept. Field trip to Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) at Tuckerton.
Preliminary field sampling.

20 Sept. Field trip to RUMFS
Individual research projects
Assignment of papers for presentation and discussion

27 Sept. Field trip to RUMFS
Individual research projects
Research progress reports

4 Oct. Field trip to RUMFS
Individual research projects

11 Oct. Field trip to Sandy Hook Bay (trawling trip)

18 Oct. This and all subsequent meetings in New Brunswick
Research progress reports

25 Oct.
Discussion of organization of scientific paper

1 Nov.
Presentation and discussion of papers

8 Nov.
Presentation and discussion of papers

15 Nov.
First draft of research paper due

22 Nov.
Discussion of first draft

27 Nov. (Wednesday): Friday classes
Presentation of research reports

6 Dec.
Presentation of research reports

Exam Date: Final draft of research paper due