MAMMALOGY

FULFILLS:
NRES/BIOS 476

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Dr. Scott Gardner- Scott Lyell Gardner, Ph.D. is a life member of the American Society of Mammalogists, has published significant papers on pure Mammalogy. His topics of research range from summaries of diversity of mammals in Bolivia through morphology and phylogenetic analysis and description of four new species of Ctenomys in Bolivia. Scott has conducted expeditionary research in Bolivia, Mongolia, western North America, and Africa. Scott's main interest is in museum and collection based biodiversity-research and species discovery.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Text (lecture): Vaughan, T. A., J. M. Ryan, and N. J. Czaplewski. 2011. Mammalogy, 5th ed. Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, ix+565+G13+B63+I17 pp.

Text (lab): Martin, R. E., R. H. Pine, and A. F. DeBlase. 2001. A manual of Mammalogy with keys to the families of the world, 3rd ed. McGraw–Hill, New York, xv+333 pp.

Course objectives: The taxonomic Class “Mammalia,” or the mammals, contains about 5,204 species. As such, it is—among vertebrates—about even numerically with the number of species of amphibians, but less diverse than the birds, and much less speciose than bony fishes (which contains about 35,000 species). Of course, mammals cannot compare numerically to the really diverse groups such as the classes Insecta or the Nemata.

Despite of this mediocre diversity, mammals are relevant for a number of reasons: We are mammals, thus knowledge of mammalian biology is critical in medicine and comparative medicine is important for our ability to know about our companion animals (mostly mammals) and food animals (also, a great deal of mammal meat is consumed by us). Similarly, there are emotional reasons for their conservation --many mammals are cute and furry. In addition, many of the species are, important and are critical to a proper functioning of ecosystems. The great plains of the North American continent (Pleistocene) once had a megafaunal diversity comparable with that of modern-day Africa.

In this class, we will undertake a survey the different groups of mammals, and their systematics (which means studying their evolutionary relationships, taxonomy, ecology and ecological adaptations, and biogeography and geographic distributions). The class will focus on hands–on knowledge of mammals including identification of the major families and genera of the world, and identification of the species of mammals living in Nebraska. 

The course in Field Mammalogy at CPBS will focus on the mammal fauna of the great plains and Sandhills region of Nebraska. Students who take this course will have first-hand understanding of the basic methods and theory of Mammalogy and how to conduct field-based surveys of mammals. Emphasis will be on understanding basic biogeography, morphology, historical ecology, and systematics of mammals. All orders of mammals will be covered, even though we will not have direct access to cetaceans or pinnipeds or a large diversity of the Marsupials. Daily sessions during the 3 week course will involve pitfall trapping, live trapping with Sherman traps, snap trapping, netting, and hand capturing of mammals. Students will be required to generate a project, complete the project, and present the project during the last two days of class.

In addition, we will undertake a number of trips, via both hiking and vehicle, to survey mammals and mammal populations on and around CPBS. Most of the class will involve working on the field station grounds, but some field trips will be made deep into the Sandhills and along the river-valleys of the area surrounding Cedar Point Biological Station.

Students will prepare 10 museum-quality study skins as part of the training session of the course. The specimens will be skins, skeletons, and ecto- and endo-parasites. Specimens will be turned in to the University of Nebraska State Museum, Division of Zoology. In this course, Mammalogy will be studied in a holistic way, with attention given to distributions, habitats, habits, phylogeny, parasitology, and behavior.