SES Courses
Module 1
The Core Course in Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems
For the first four weeks of the program, all students will dive into the fundamentals of ecosystem science using local terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on Cape Cod as model systems. This course will provide students with intensive training in ecosystem science in various field sites including grasslands, coastal forests, freshwater ponds, and estuaries, where students will learn methods and tools to measure and quantify primary and secondary production, decomposition, and nutrient cycling within the soils, sediments, and water. Students will use field and laboratory instruments to measure light, photosynthesis, gas and nutrient fluxes from living organisms and their environment and learn how to scale up processes to the ecosystem level.
Terrestrial Fieldwork Sites
Terrestrial fieldwork is conducted in grassland, forest and suburban habitats in Peterson Farm and Beebe Woods, Falmouth and the Crane Wildlife Management Area, Mashpee. These sites are conservation areas and chosen to allow a comparison of ecosystems processes, such as primary production and nitrogen mineralization, and properties such as standing stock, plant diversity and soil carbon and nitrogen content across the disturbance gradient.
Aquatic Field Work Sites
There are four local sites used for aquatic fieldwork that offer an array of conditions to be studied: West Falmouth Harbor, Childs River/Waquoit Bay, John’s Pond, and Sider’s Pond.
West Falmouth Harbor: Small salt water embayment adjacent to Buzzards Bay on the west coast of Falmouth that is impacted by the plume from the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Child’s River/Waquoit Bay: This is a system of small estuaries on the outwash plain along the south coast of Falmouth. This site has been eutrophied by groundwater contaminated with nitrogen from septic systems in densely settled sections of the watershed, resulting in the disappearance of eel grass in this system.
John’s Pond: A freshwater kettle hole pond with a deep basin (~ 20 meters) that is seasonally stratified.
Sider’s Pond: A salt- stratified meromictic pond about 15 meters deep that displays strong vertical gradients in oxygen, sulfate, nitrate and ammonia, which illustrates anaerobic processes in marine and brackish water systems.
Modules 2 and 3
Following the 4 week core course students will choose in modules 2 and 3 between two different course offerings. Each module consists of one intensive course taught exclusively for three weeks. In module 2 students can choose between Coastal Watersheds and Methods and Concepts in Oceanography and in module 3 they can choose between Methods in Microbial Ecology and Marine Resource Use and Conservation. Mathematical modeling of Ecological Systems may be offered in the third module as well.
Coastal Watersheds (Jim McClelland)
Estuarine ecosystems are strongly influenced by terrestrial inputs, and changes in the quantity and quality of water flowing from land into these ecosystems are altering their function. This course examines how human activities on land alter the flow of water and water-borne materials from coastal watersheds to adjoining estuaries. Field work focusing on local watershed-estuary systems will explore how changes in land use have increased nutrient inputs to local estuaries, and consequently, how the estuarine ecosystems have changed. Activities include sampling of groundwater and surface water, laboratory analyses of nutrient content, and estimation of nutrient input rates (using field-based calculations and modeling techniques) to different estuaries. The course fosters fundamental understanding of principles in watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry and advanced exploration of coupling between terrestrial and aquatic systems.
In this course, students will explore dynamic systems that shape our oceans and cutting-edge techniques used to study them. The course combines lectures, hands-on laboratory work, and field work to offer a comprehensive introduction to biological oceanography, physical oceanography, biogeochemistry, marine ecology, and the ever-changing nature of our oceans. Students will gain practical experience in key laboratory, field, and ship-board oceanographic techniques, including microscopy, molecular methods like PCR and sequencing, ocean sampling methods such as water column profiling using CTD casts and Niskin bottle grabs, and sediment grabs. Additionally, they will delve into the physical processes that drive ocean circulation, major oceanographic features, the role of primary and secondary production and the microbial loop in marine ecosystems, and the impact of climate change and human activities on ocean health.
This course reviews the scientific rationale behind various methods suitable for determining the role of microbes in ecosystems through a series of hands-on laboratories. In the laboratory, students will work with the latest techniques to measure microbial biomass, activity, extracellular enzymes, biogeochemistry and species diversity. These include epifluorescence microscopy, radio isotopic tracers for bacterial production, fluorescent substrates, hydrogen sulfide and methane production, and molecular probes for classes of bacteria.
Marine resource use and conservation (Loretta Roberson and Mirta Teichberg)
Students will learn about coastal and marine resource use and examine their threats to biodiversity and conservation exploring examples in the Cape Cod region and discussing global case studies. The course will review various methods and uses of aquaculture and mariculture for promoting the blue economy, their potential consequences, but also potential to mitigate climate change and nutrient pollution. We will also review the role of restoration in promoting ecosystem recovery and conservation. Field trips will include visits to local shellfish and finfish hatcheries, ongoing restoration projects, and conservation organizations.
The purpose of this course is to introduce the students to dynamic simulation modeling of ecological processes. The students will be exposed to the role of models in science and the relationship of models to scientific theories. Then the basics of calculus are reviewed in the context of the mass-balance concept. Next the students are introduced to numerical (as opposed to analytical) solutions of the mass-balance equation and apply these techniques to a series of examples like the growth of an individual organism and of a population of organisms, the interactions within species communities (competition for resources, predator-prey systems), the cycling of elements within ecosystems, the hydrology of a watershed, and an analysis of the CO2 balance of the atmosphere. The students will develop their own simulation model of an ecosystem and provide a set of equations describing the ecological processes they want to simulate. These equations are typically based on the simple concept of mass balance and can be applied to ecosystem element cycles, population dynamics, or community interactions.
Module 4
Independent Research Projects
The structured laboratory experiences and techniques of the core courses and electives set the stage for the most rewarding part of the SES program, the Independent Research Projects. During the last five weeks of the course, students will be able to devote full time to a project of their choosing. Once students have established a project concept and are matched to a mentor, they will be expected to develop a formal research proposal for the project and report their work at the final symposium through an oral presentation and written form as a scientific paper.
Science Writing Seminar
SES students all take part in a one credit seminar that introduces the art of science writing. This course is taught by Claudia Geib, freelance science journalist and producer of the podcast Gastropod, with the help of guest experts across the science writing industry. The goal is to help students understand how scientific work can be made more accessible to the public, and to produce writing that engages readers as well as educates them. Students will interview pre-eminent scientists, learn to write short news stories, and work to produce a long-form feature of their choice as a final project. Along the way, they'll learn from podcast producers, documentary filmmakers, investigative journalists and institutional science writers who can share their experience and expertise in this diverse field. With this and other programs at the Marine Biological Laboratory, we hope to begin training a new generation of writers who can communicate critical scientific and environmental issues with the public.
Prerequisites
Because of the diversity of curricula at the schools participating in the Environmental Science Consortium, we are providing a description of the knowledge we hope students will have, rather than specific course requirements. We recommend courses in general biology, chemistry and calculus or statistics.