Molecular Techniques in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The course will give an introduction to the most common molecular techniques used in ecology and evolutionary biology. The course will also give a short introduction in analysing molecular data to study ecological and evolutionary biology questions.

Knowledge
After completing the course the candidate will be able to:

Describe different molecular techniques relevant to the study of ecology, taxonomy and evolutionary biology, their application and importance.
Identify the advantages and disadvantages of different techniques and motivate the choice of technique to study questions in ecology, taxonomy and evolutionary biology
Analyse data using relevant genetic softwares and make biological interpretations of the results

Skills
Candidate will be able to:
Perform molecular genetic analysis of plant and animal samples
Use of different materials and laboratory equipment to conduct experiments in molecular ecology and evolutionary biology
Choose and apply suitable molecular techniques to answer biological questions within the field of ecology and evolution
Identify problem, discuss the obstacles during the experiment and try to find solutions to overcome the problems

General competence
Candidate will be able to:

Learn to present the results of studies and their interpretation in a written form.


After completing the course the students will be able to:
- Describe different molecular techniques that can be used to study questions in ecology, taxonomy and evolutionary biology
- Put some of these techniques into practice
- Identify the advanges and disadvantages of different techniques and motivate the choice of technique to study questions in ecology, taxonomy and evolutionary biology
- Use relevant software to interpret some types of molecular data.

Lectures: 10 hours
Laboratory course: 30 hours
Independent writing of reports: 15 hours



Admission to this course is restricted