We are pleased to announce open enrollment for our graduate course in Tropical Biology, which is offered at a substantial discount to OTS consortium students.  

Course costs exceed $7,500 per student, but we are holding OTS consortium students tuition this year to $2,500 per student.

June 7 - July 29, 2011

Application deadline: March 4, 2011

Tropical Biology: An Ecological Approach is the Organization for Tropical Studies' (OTS') oldest course, offered every year since 1963.  The course is an intensive, eight-week field introduction to tropical biology for graduate students enrolled in degree programs, with priority admission for students at OTS member institutions.  This classic OTS field course which has trained tropical biologists since the 1960s might also be called "Fundamentals of Research Design and Practice."  At its heart lie the highly regarded OTS "field problems" which focus on the formulation of feasible research questions, experimental design, data collection, analysis, and oral and written presentation.  The OTS Tropical Biology course provides a unique learning opportunity in the incomparable, biologically diverse habitats of Costa Rica. Along the way students immerse themselves in tropical diversity, find systems or questions for graduate or postgraduate work, and explore new organisms and ideas.  All this happens while pursuing, in several faculty-led and independent research projects, the tenets of inquiry-based investigative science.  Orientation walks, statistics training, workshops and lectures on current topics in tropical ecology round out the course.

OTS Course Instructors, Deedra McClearn and Erin Kuprewicz will be joined by these prominent scientists from Latin America, the US and Europe: 

    - Pablo Arroyo - McGill University (secondary forests, remote sensing)
    - Beth Braker - Occidental College (plant-insect interactions)
    - Federico Bolaños - University of Costa Rica (herps, long-term distribution patterns)
    - Diego Dierick - Florida International University (plant ecophysiology)
    - Maureen Donnelly - Florida International University (herps, biodiversity, biogeography)
    - Delphine Farmer - University of Colorado (climate change, atmospheric chemistry)
    - Carlos García-Robledo - Smithsonian Institution (invasives, bar-coding, plant-beetle interactions)
    - Ken Gerow - University of Wyoming (biostats)
    - Craig Guyer - Auburn University (herps, biogeography)
    - Deb Hamilton - Monteverde Institute (bellbirds, biological corridors)
    - JB Heiser - Cornell University (oceanography, marine biology)
    - Jorge Jiménez - MARVIVA (oceanography, mangrove ecology)
    - Susan Letcher - OTS (secondary forests)
    - Pedro León - University of Costa Rica (molecular ecology)
    - Steve Oberbauer - Florida International University (plant ecophysiology, biogeochemistry)
    - Joe O'Brien - US Forest Service (forest dynamics)
    - Adrián Pinto - University of Costa Rica (microbial ecology, leaf-cutter ants)
    - Alan Pounds - Monteverde Tropical Forest Reserve (altitudinal gradients, frog populations)
    - Bernal Rodríguez - University of Costa Rica (bats and bat tents)
    - Carlos M. Rodríguez - Conservation International (history of conservation in Costa Rica)
    - Cindy Sagers - NSF (plant-insect interactions, stable isotopes)
    - Mahmood Sasa - OTS (herps)
    - Jennifer Stynoski - University of Miami (frogs, ecotoxicology)
    - Bob Timm - University of Kansas (mammals / biodiversity)
    - Corine Vriesendorp - Field Museum (rapid inventories, seedling dynamics)
    - Steven Whitfield - Florida International University (amphibian declines, ecotoxicology)
    - Bruce Young - Nature Serve (avian populations, avian conservation)
    - Zak Zahawi - OTS (forest restoration)
    - Jim Zook - e-Bird (long-term trends in avian populations)

Plus...  a special Santa Rosa expedition with Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs.