TOPICS: 
Species ranges and correlates of species range size (January 30th)
Ecological niches and methods for modeling them (February 6th)
Niche conservation  (February 13th)
Body size and macroecological patterns (February 20th)
Measuring species richess (February 27th)  
Determinants of species richness patterns across latitude (March 5th)
Determinants of species richness patterns across elevation (March 12th)
Gradients of genetic diversity due to repeated climate change cycles and paleomacroecology (March 19th)
Conservation macroecology and biogeography (April 9th)
 
SYLLABUS:  here
 
TOOLS AND DATASETS: here
 
LABS:

LITERATURE FOR DEBATES:
Week 1:Debate team 1a - in support of Rapoport's rule  - papers:  Stevens 1989, Sanders 2002
            Debate team 1b - against Rapoport's Rule - papers: Gaston 1999, Ribas 2006
 
Week 3:  Debate team 2a - in support of niche conservatism - papers:  Peterson et al. 1999, Wiens 2004
              also see these abstracts.
              Debate team 2b - against niche conservatism - papers:  Davis and Shaw 2001, Broennimann et al 2007
 
LITERATURE FOR DISCUSSION:
Week 2:  Papers for niches and niche modeling discussion:  Hijmans, 2006, Phillips 2006 (please don't get too bogged down in the technical details), Soberon, 2005.  You might want to read these in the following order:  Soberon -> Phillips -> Hijmans.

Week 4: Papers for the metabolic theory. body size and biodiversity discussion:  Brown et al. 2002, Horn 2004
Tilman et al. 2004.  Please also look over (the scanned copy of) Chapter 5 of Brown's Macroecology book.

Week 5.  Papers for species richness estimation and the mid-domain effect discussion:  Gotelli and Colwell 2001, and Colwell et al. 2004.

Week 6.  Paper for species richness patterns across latitudinal gradients:  Rickleffs 2004.

Week 7.  Paper for species richness/diversity patterns across altitudinal gradients:  Lomolino 2001.

Week 8.  Papers for the gradients of genetic diversity/paleomacroecology discussion:  Jablonksi et al. 2006, Loehle 2007.
 
Week 9.  Papers for macroecology and conservation discussion:  Whittaker et al. 2005, Ceballos and Ehrlich 2006.
 
POSITION PAPERS: