This course is designed to provide students with comprehensive exposure to the subject of invertebrate zoology. Students will learn about the diversity, taxonomy, ecology, evolution, structure, and function of invertebrates. We will cover all animal phyla from Annelida to Xenacoelomorpha and explore diversity within phyla based on the rich marine biota of the San Juan Islands. Students will learn about the field of invertebrate zoology in light of information gained through the use of traditional tools like electron microscopy and histology as well as new tools like genomics and evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”). If you like going to zoos and aquariums, you should like this course as most of students’ time in the course will be spent focusing on the study of living animals in the laboratory and field.

Applications are welcome from advanced undergraduate students, post-baccalaureates and graduate students. Prior coursework in invertebrate biology or animal diversity is preferred but not required; if in doubt, please contact one of the instructors.

Instructors for this course are:

• Dr. Kevin Kocot – University of Alabama
• Dr. Johanna Cannon – University of California Santa Barbara

Enrollment is limited to 20 students.

No textbook is required, but having a copy of Brusca’s Invertebrates (3rd edition; preferred), Ruppert, Fox, and Barnes’s Invertebrate Zoology,  Pechenik’s Biology of the Invertebrates, or Kozloff’s Invertebrate Zoology as a reference book is strongly recommended.