Title: Advanced Fieldcourse in Ecology and Conservation – XTBG, China 2017

Venue: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),  in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China

Dates: 12 Oct – 23 Nov 2017 (6 weeks)

Organiser: XTBG

Course fee: RMB 8,000 (or 1350 USD , high-income countries/regions), RMB 2,500 (or 420 USD, other countries/regions) based on your salary country, which is not necessarily your home country. The course fee will cover course materials, lecture room renting, teaching allowance, local transport at the training sites etc.

Food and hotel costs: the course organizer will arrange food and hotel, and will have fund to cover part of the cost for all participants. Every participant needs to pay RMB 4,000 (or 680 USD) for the rest part of the fee.

Scholarships: We have some budget for scholarships (see the application form for details), which will be awarded based on both merit and financial need.

Course credits: AFEC-X has obtained accreditation from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). Graduate students from the UCAS and the institutes under CAS will receive five course credits towards their degree program upon completion of the AFEC-X field course. Other participants may be able to arrange recognition of these credits by their home institutions.

About: This program is an intensive course in field research methods, including research design, sampling and data analysis, intended primarily for early-stage graduate students in Ecology and Conservation. A typical day will include lectures, practical work in the field or laboratory, and opportunities for informal discussion. Participants will take part in established long term field monitoring experiments and gain experience in independent project design. During the course debates and/or games around conservation issues will be organized. With guidance, participants will develop and present research proposals and conduct field-based data collection. The statistical program R will be introduced and used for the data analysis throughout the course. The course concludes with a symposium, where participants present results of course activities amongst their peers and instructors. The course is based mainly at XTBG, with excursions organized to different field sites in the region. During the training course participants are encouraged to approach the XTBG professors to discuss their current research and future plans. For more details, see Faculty and Staff.

Topics: Tropical Environments and Ecosystems, Biodiversity Science, Conservation Biology, Soil Ecology, Plant-Animal Interactions, Invasive Biology, Climate Change Biology, Molecular Ecology,  G.I.S. and Spatial Modelling, Experimental Design and R Statistics, Presentation and Writing Skills, etc.

Registration open until 15 August and 31 August 2017 for application out of China and in China respectively.