Short description
This course explores current concepts about global change and its biological responses. Plants, animals, soils and entire terrestrial, marine and agricultural ecosystems will be examined under atmospheric CO2 enrichment, climate change, invasion by exotic organisms, land-use change, and other components on a global scale. Socio-economic topics and sustainable development will be included.

Course description
This course explores current concepts about global change and its biological responses, with an emphasis on organisms, natural ecosystems, and agriculture. The goal is to examine the major transformations occurring in the Earth's physical and biological environments, the anthropogenic and natural causes of these changes, and their likely consequences for plants, animals, soils and ecosystems. Components of global change include atmospheric CO2 enrichment, climate change, invasion by exotic organisms, land-use change, and the interaction among those factors. An emphasis is placed on the involvement of agriculture in global change on one hand, and on impacts of these changes on cultivated plants, agricultural production, domestic animals and fisheries on the other hand. The course addresses the impact of humans on the carbon cycle, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and on the functioning of terrestrial and marine systems. In addition, sustainable development, socio-economic relationships, and food security in view of present and future global change are discussed. Students will be introduced to different approaches of studying global change impacts on biological systems, including quantitative measures. Discussions further develop topics dealt with in lectures, and focus on case studies, research methods, examples for quantification, and key publications.