Plant Biology Courses

Herbarium personnel assist with multiple notable courses.

Find courses discussing factors determining vegetation structure, plant diversity, biodiversity hotspots, plant adaptations, human-plant interactions and climate change or exploring the economic and agricultural importance of plants to people, do selected experiments on gene expression, biolistic transformation, confocal microscopy, laser capture microdissection, microarray analysis, genetic mapping and mutant analysis, transposon tagging, proteomics, and metabolite analysis, or take an intensive field trip to Patagonia!

PLBIO 2300

Global Plant Biodiversity & Vegetation

Plants are distributed across the globe in distinctive vegetation types, and have a close association with local and global climate. This course discusses factors determining vegetation structure, plant diversity, biodiversity hotspots, plant adaptations, human-plant interactions and climate change with an emphasis on ecological concepts, plant-climate interactions and plant adaptation at a very basic level. Intended for both Plant Sciences majors and students without a strong background in plant sciences. An associated field trip to Patagonia that was previously offered with this course is now offered as a separate course with credits in the spring semester.

PLSCI 6410

Plant Biology Laboratory

Includes selected experiments on gene expression, biolistic transformation, confocal microscopy, laser capture microdissection, microarray analysis, genetic mapping and mutant analysis, transposon tagging, proteomics, and metabolite analysis.

PLBIO 2301

Field Lab in Global Plant Biodiversity and Vegetation

PLBIO 2301 is an intensive field trip for undergraduate students taken to Patagonia in January each year. The course has variously visited localities in both Argentina and Chile, mostly south of latitude S 39 degrees. In recent years, we have limited the course to only the Argentine side in order to avoid logistical complications of crossing the border.

Students contribute images to this site, many of which will become public on the CUBIC website (Cornell University Botanical Image Collection).

PLBIO 2470

Plants and Cultures of the World

This course explores the economic and agricultural importance of plants to people. Topics include the roles of plants as sources of food, shelter, fiber, and medicines, as well as the cultural and historical aspects of economic botany, and will instill an appreciation of our connection with plants.