BIOL 434 - Microbiomes

Credit Hours: 4
Frequency of Offering: Alternate Fall Terms

This course explores the world of microbiomes-communities of microorganisms that inhabit various environments, including the human body, soil, oceans, and engineered systems. We will examine their ecological roles, evolutionary processes, and how they influence health, agriculture, and climate. This course will mainly introduce students to the analyses of microbial communities from environmental samples. Main concepts in microbial ecology will be discussed and applied to identify and estimate microbial diversity using next-generation sequencing techniques. The course will cover topics in DNA extraction, sequencing, phylogenetics, community ecology, and multivariate statistical analyses in R. By the end of the course, you should be able to analyze and quantify the community composition of microbes obtained from environmental samples (e.g. soil, water, animal/plant tissues).

Prerequisite(s): BIOL 270 , BIOL 270L , BIOL 271 , and BIOL 271L