20464 The Biology of Desert-Dwelling Bats
Credits: 3 intermediate credits in Life Sciences
Prerequisites: 72 credits with an average grade of at least 82, including General Biology I, General Biology II, Ecology and either Selected Topics in Animal Behavior or Human Physiology. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library. Permission to enroll in the course is conditional on the approval of the course coordinator at the OUI, and admission is determined by the faculty member responsible for the course at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
This is an interuniversity course taught at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
The focus of the course is on predator-prey interactions in desert dwelling bats, emphasizing ecological aspects of echolocation. The first half of the course is composed of lectures by the course instructors, presentation of seminars by the participating students, and discussion forums. The second part of the course is dedicated to field projects under the guidance of the course instructors.
Aside from theory and background, students will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with all the basic tools of fieldwork with bats: Use of hand nets, mist nets and canopy nets to capture bats; Handling and identification of live bats; Use of electronic bat detectors and call recorders; Computerized techniques of echolocation call analysis; Use of visual tagging devices to study foraging behavior and habitat use by bats; Advanced data analysis techniques.
The two-week course is usually offered in July and registration is open until the end of April. For information on registration procedures, contact the office of the Department of Natural Sciences at 972-9-7781746/7. No more than two interuniversity courses1 will be recognized by the Open University for credit (6 credits).
1among the following courses: 20445, 20447, 20448, 20464.