General Biology

MacArthur and Wilson's theory of island biogeography predicts species richness from island area and isolation, balanced between immigration and extinction. Madagascar is the extreme case: large enough to sustain complex ecosystems, isolated enough that colonisation events are counted rather than estimated, and old enough for the consequences to be fully expressed.

Participants work with the theory in two forms. At the scale of the island itself, they trace colonisation histories, the small number of successful arrivals that produced lemurs, tenrecs, euplerid carnivores and vangas, and the sweepstakes dispersal model that explains why some groups made it and others never did.

At the scale of forest fragments, they collect their own data: measuring patch area and isolation, sampling species richness within patches, and plotting the resulting species-area relationship. Producing that curve from data you gathered yourself, in a place where the theory was built, changes how a student understands it.

The programme uses three parallel case studies, each observable in the field. Convergence is demonstrated by the Didiereaceae and cacti; by mantella frogs and Neotropical poison frogs; by tenrecs and hedgehogs. In each case the organisms are unrelated and the resemblance is the product of similar selective pressure.

Adaptive radiation is demonstrated by the vangas and the lemurs, both single ancestral lineages producing an array of ecological forms. Participants build simple morphological measurement datasets and relate form to diet and foraging behaviour, reproducing in miniature the logic of the original studies.

Coevolution is demonstrated by Angraecum sesquipedale and its hawkmoth, and by lemur-mediated seed dispersal. Because Darwin's prediction about the moth was made from a specimen and vindicated decades later, it also provides the clearest available teaching example of how scientific prediction actually works.

The syllabus content is only half the value. Participants are trained in experimental design from the first days: forming a testable hypothesis, identifying independent and dependent variables, controlling confounds, defining sample size and replication, and recognising pseudoreplication, which is the single most common flaw in student field projects.

They then execute: randomised and stratified sampling, quadrat and transect work, mark-recapture for population estimation, abiotic measurement of light, humidity, soil and temperature, and standardised data recording. Analysis follows with descriptive statistics, diversity indices, correlation and appropriate significance testing, plus honest treatment of uncertainty.

Every participant designs and runs an independent investigation and presents it to staff and peers. For school groups this maps directly onto coursework and extended-essay requirements; for undergraduates it functions as a rehearsal for a final-year project.

Energy flow, nutrient cycling, decomposition and trophic structure are all taught in the field. Participants set decomposition trials, measure litterfall, sample soil, and construct food webs from observed interactions rather than from a diagram.

Human impact is unavoidable and is treated as core curriculum. Madagascar's deforestation, erosion (the lateritic red rivers visible from the air are among the most striking images of soil loss anywhere) and the debate over tavy shifting cultivation give students a case study that is complex rather than moralistic. They meet farmers, park staff and researchers who disagree with each other.

The result is a group of students who understand that ecology is a science of measurement and trade-offs, not a set of conclusions, and who have the field competence to test claims for themselves.