BIO-8024 Northern Biodiversity Hotspots: taxonomy field courses - 5 stp

Biodiversity loss, often referred to as biodiversity crisis, is a global environmental problem causing international concern and demanding urgent counteracting measures. Biodiversity is commonly defined in terms of a number of species present in a particular environment, or in total in the world. This makes species not only one of the fundamental biological concepts but also a focus of global conservation efforts. That is why practical experience with morphology based species identification is in high demand in both basic and applied biological research.

During the year 2018 we offer two options for the field courses:

Option 1. "Flora of Skibotn, plant collection and identification", Skibotn field station, Troms, Norway, August 13-18. Skibotn area has a remarkably high species number for such northern latitudes (68-69 degrees N) challenging the general concept that species richness decreases as latitude increases. Daily excursions to both lowland and mountain habitats will be combined with practical work in the class to identify the collected materials using the identification keys and learn diagnostic characters of plant taxa.

Option 2. "Entomology hands-on: collecting, sorting, species ID", Station Linné, Öland, Sweden, September 2-9. The course aims to present several aspects of insect handling in field and in collections. Different methods and techniques for collecting, sorting, identifying, and preserving will be taught.  We will broadly cover different taxonomic levels, and provide some opportunities to dive deeper into some of them. Station Linné is coordinating the largest Malaise trap project ever run in Scandinavia: "SMTP", Swedish Malaise Trap Project, and preserved SMTP-material will be one of the parts of the course content.

See additional information about these two course options on ForBio webpages. They will be presented as separate courses.

ForBio members that are MSc-, PhD-students or PostDocs in Norway can have travel and living costs covered (contact ForBio) http://www.forbio.uio.no/events/

Registration deadline for PhD students at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway: 15 June

Application deadline for other applicants: 1 June

PhD students or holders of a Norwegian master´s degree of five years or 3+ 2 years (or equivalent) may be admitted. PhD students must upload a document from their university stating that there are registered PhD students. This group of applicants does not have to prove English proficiency and are exempt from semester fee.

Holders of a Master´s degree must upload a Master´s Diploma with Diploma Supplement / English translation of the diploma. Applicants from listed countries must document proficiency in English. To find out if this applies to you see the following list:

Proficiency in English must be documented - list of countries 

For more information on accepted English proficiency tests and scores, as well as exemptions from the English proficiency tests, please see the following document:

Proficiency in english - PhD level studies 

Maximum 15 participants.

If more than 15 applicants, priority will be given as follows:

• Participants admitted to the PhD programme at UiT
• Participants in the Associate Professor programme (Førstelektorprogrammet)
• PhD candidates from other universities
• People with a minimum of a Masters degree (or equivalent), who have not been admitted to a PhD programme

PhD students at UiT register for the course through StudentWeb.

Other applicants apply for admission through SøknadsWeb. Application code 9301.

Contact Ingjerd Gauslaa Nilsen at the BFE-faculty if you have troubles or questions regarding registration to the course.

Oral exam. Examination will include identification of collected specimens (from the groups not mentioned during this course) using published keys in Norwegian or English. A graded scale of five marks from A to E for pass and F for fail.

There will be a re-sit examination for students that did not pass the previous ordinary examination.