Ecology and Management of Marine Fishes (FW 420/520)
(co-taught with Selina Heppell)
Overview: Our goal for the course is to show how basic ecological principles can be applied to fisheries management to promote sustainable fisheries and conservation. There is a need for new approaches in fisheries management; over 2/3 of commercially exploited species are overfished and marine habitats have been severely degraded, forcing closures and drastic reductions in commercial and recreational fisheries. In Oregon alone, our groundfish fleet is undergoing a 50% reduction through boat buy-backs and retraining programs for fishermen, and there is a closure in effect that restricts all trawling between depths of 600 and 1500 feet. Problems of overfishing may be solved through a better understanding of marine ecological processes, fish life history and population dynamics, and community and ecosystem responses to fishing. There are 3 themes covered in this course: Life History and Behavior, Multi-species Interactions, and Habitat.

Coastal Ecology and Resource Management (FW 426/526)
(team taught)
Overview: The goal of the HMSC educational experience is to provide students with a broad-based education in the ecology and management of coastal marine and freshwater ecosystems and natural resources. Human population growth and development increasingly impact coastal ecosystems and resources. Ecologists and resource managers need to study environmental changes and develop policies and strategies to ensure long-term, sustainable production of these natural resources. In response to this need, the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, offers a suite of courses each fall term at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, OR, to provide students with the knowledge and tools necessary to address issues in coastal resources. Central to these offerings is Coastal Ecology and Resource Management (CERM), a two week, intensive, team-taught class designed to lay the foundation for students' understanding of these ecosystems and resources. Topics flow from the coastal mountains to the open ocean and emphasize the linkages between basic science and management. Lectures, laboratories, field experiences, and issue forums in CERM will expose students in a variety of venues to the ecology and issues surrounding use of natural resources on the Oregon coast.

Salmon Estuarine and Ocean Ecology (FW 599)
(team taught; Fleming (lead), Michael Banks, George Boehlert, Dan Bottom & Ric Brodeur)
Overview: The goal of the course is to introduce students to the broad range of issues faced in understanding the marine phase of salmon life histories. While it is recognized that the estuarine and ocean life stages are critical in the life history of salmon and survival to reproduction, there remain many unanswered issues concerning the marine driving forces shaping populations. Clearly, less is known about estuarine and marine aspects of the life history than the freshwater aspects, with much of this knowledge about the former being descriptive (or correlational) rather than experimental. This, in part, reflects the difficulty (spatial and temporal scales) of undertaking experimental work in such environments. Progress in these areas appears to be closely linked to the development of new techniques of tracking individuals (e.g., telemetry), identifying population structure (e.g., molecular genetics) and quantifying nutrient dynamics (e.g., stable isotope analyses). Moreover, there is a need to understand the linkages between freshwater and marine life stages, and the degree of interdependency in shaping life history and behavioral patterns. An issue underlying much of this is the role of variance and diversity in the evolutionary stability of salmon populations. How do salmon populations cope with environmental variability and what role does life history variability and population structuring play? These questions are particularly important given the weakened state of many salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest. This team-taught class is designed for graduate students and faculty to interact, discuss and critically assess key issues in salmon estuarine and ocean ecology.