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Duke in Australia – Biogeography in an Australian Context

Australia is an ancient world.  Its geological record goes back to the very dawn of time, harboring evidence of the oldest crust on Earth, the origin of life itself, and the very first animal communities.  Human memories also run deep in the Land Down Under.  The Australian Aboriginal people arguably represent the longest continuous community of peoples on planet Earth going back at least 65,000 years.  Due to this unique geological and human history, Australia preserves perhaps the single-most unique ecosystem and diversity of plants and animals of any continent.  Australia is thus an ideal place to develop an understanding of why fauna and flora around the world are different from place to place and, on the other hand, why plants or animals separated by great distances may be closely related.  Australia has been both evolutionary forge and conservator.

Biogeography is in part a descriptive science; students in the program will become familiar with Australian plants and animals as they study biogeography in the Australian context.  Fieldwork in the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and Queensland provides exposure to much of the biodiversity of Australia.  Biogeography is also an explanatory science and to understand the present diversity and distribution of organisms it is necessary to study the past. To do so one must find out what organisms were present in the past, where they lived, and how they evolved and changed. In order to explain the changes that occurred one must also understand how and why climates changed and this in turn requires an understanding of geology and oceanography: the movement of continents, the creation of mountain ranges, and changes in the circulation of the oceans. Biogeography is an especially timely topic because humans in Australia and elsewhere are modifying environments, affecting climate, causing extinction of species, and introducing species into new environments. There are many examples in Australia that illustrate how human intervention has changed the face of the landscape and the plants and animals that inhabit it.

This program is conducted by the Duke University Global Education Office.  Service and logistics in Australia are provided by Cross Cultural Encounters.