Biogeography and Macro-ecology

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This is the description of the course from the Ku Leuven Website: The student is able to interpret present patterns of distribution and diversity of plant and animal species and makes hereby use of processes and insights from different disciplines such as geography, ecology and evolutionary biology. The student is also able to work in group and to summarize the phylogeny and current distribution of a selected taxon which is critically discussed this in a historical and ecological contex, based on scientific literature and to present the results in a concise and scientific way both in a written report and an oral presentation. This is the description of the course exercises from the Ku Leuven Website: Students work in small groups to discuss and present the current distribution of a selected (plant or animal) taxon in a historical and ecological context, this on the basis of scientific literature. The students present their results on the one hand in a written report of up to 10 pages (excluding figures, tables, references) and in an oral presentation of 15 minutes. In case of a large number of students, the group project is replaced by a paper authored by 2-3 students and with similar structure as the group project.