Graduate-level seminars in Biological Oceanography offer opportunities to participate in lectures, discussions, and research projects on topics of special interest.

Seminar offerings vary each quarter. The list at right describes a selection of seminars offered in past quarters.

Contact individual professors or the Oceanography main office to inquire about future seminars.

• Physical Biology of Microorganisms

  Tentative meeting times: Tuesday-Thursday 1:30-2:50. 3 credits.

  Instructor: Danny Grünbaum

  Synopsis: This course will focus on understanding physical mechanisms and constraints that shape microbial dynamics in marine environments. Emphasis will be on developing quantitative descriptions of physical mechanisms, and defining their consequences for microbes’ ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Topics will include fluxes of limiting resources, molecular transport mechanisms (e.g. facilitated diffusion), biomechanics of locomotion and sensation, movement behavior strategies, and the ecology and evolution of cooperation and coordination (e.g. quorum sensing). Methods will include computer labs using a variety of analytical and Matlab-based models to examine hypotheses about interactions between microbes and their biotic and abiotic environments.
  

  The course will include a combination of lectures, discussions of readings from the primary literature, and individual student projects. A high level of participation in classroom activities will be expected, and well as oral and written presentation of individual project results.

  This course is open to graduate students, and advanced undergraduates with the permission of the instructor. Prerequisites: Calculus. Prior programming experience or mathematical training beyond calculus is not required. But determination and a high level of interactivity with the instructor and with other students will be expected.

• Environmental Genomics  

  Meeting times: Tues-Thurs 10:00:11:20, OTB205. 3 credits.

  Instructor: Gabrielle Rocap

  Synopsis: This course will involve discussion of current literature and computer labs/homework assignments on topics such as codon usage, horizontal gene transfer, relative rates of evolution, phylogenetic profiling of metabolic pathways, community metagenomics with an emphasis on the application of these methods to environmentally relevant organisms. There will also be a final project of your own choosing which makes use of publicly available sequence data.
  

• Modeling Populations in the Ocean

Meeting times: Thursday 1:30-2:50 and Friday 2:30-3:50. 3 credits. 

Instructor: Danny Grünbaum 

Synopsis: This course will introduce biological oceanographers and marine ecologists to modeling methods for posing and answering quantitative questions about biological processes in marine environments. The course will have two parts. Part 1 will consist of lectures, literature, and computer lab exercises that familiarize students with theoretical background and modeling software (Matlab, Maple) relevant to population dynamics, population structure, and other subject areas tailored to the interests of class participants. Part 2 will consist of individual modeling projects on subject areas of special interest to the student (e.g., a potential thesis chapter or meeting poster). Each student will formulate a quantitative biological question, frame and execute a modeling strategy, and present results at preliminary and final stages of analysis.

This course is open to graduate students, and advanced undergraduates with the permission of the instructor.

Prerequisites: Calculus. Prior programming experience or mathematical training beyond calculus is not required. But, determination and a high level of interactivity with the instructor and with other students will be expected.

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