Courses in Plant Biology
Courses of interest to Plant Biology graduate students and advanced undergraduates are offered through the School of Integrative Biology, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Crop Sciences, Geography, the School of Molecular and Celular Biology, Computer Science and other campus units. Prospective graduate students should note that the "curriculum" is tailored individually and depends upon the undergraduate background and career interests of an entering student. The over 30 faculty and affiliates in the department offer a very broad range of expertise for teaching and student mentoring. Our association with the USDA Photosynthesis Research group and the Illinois Natural History Survey gives our department an especially broad range of expertise and provides diverse options for study.
New courses are developed every semester, especially in the rapidly developing fields of biology. New half- or full- semester courses often appear under a rubric carrying a number in the 490's (such as 496), before they become established in the curriculum. Check bulletin boards for announcements and the UIUC Courses, Schedules & Requirements website for up-to-date listings.
Below is a list of courses typically taken and recommended by Plant Biology graduate students in different research concentrations, giving the course name, rubric, when it is offered, who teaches it and some comments provided by students. Click on course names to go to course websites, where available.
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Physiology and Development |
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| Cell Structure and Function | MCB 400 | every Fall | Lyne Levesque and Kevin Xiang | |
| Developmental Biology | MCB 410 | Spring | Huey Hing, Phil Newmark, Jon Henry, Humphrey Yao | |
| Plant Physiology | IB 420 | every Spring | Don Briskin | "good, in-depth coverage, but accessible, not hard" |
| Photosynthesis | IB 421 (BIOPH 432) |
Fall of odd-numbered years | Don Ort, Lisa Ainsworth, Carl Bernacchi | “... overlaps considerably with Plants and Global Change, Colin Wraight's section includes high level biophysics” |
| Plant Development | IB 424 | Fall of odd-numbered years | Tom Jacobs | "...well organized, learned a lot, discussing journal papers major strength...interactive environment in class" |
| Physiology & Biochemistry Discussions | IB496 | Fall & Spring | Steve Huber and Hans Bohnert | |
| Environmental Plant Physiology | IB 542 (CPSC 538) |
Spring | Steve Long | “following some brief instruction by Prof. Long, each student takes a subject area and lectures to the class” |
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Ecology and Climate Change |
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| Watershed Hydrology | NRES 401 | Fall | Greg McIsaac | "good if looking at stream and lake hydrology, not good on groundwater, soil water or atmospheric properties" |
| Ecological Genetics | IB 405 | Fall | Kim Hughes | “oriented towards population genetics” |
| Plants and Global Climate Change | IB 440 (CPSC 431, NRES 431) |
Spring | Steve Long, Lisa Ainsworth, Andy Leakey | “one of the most useful class I've taken”. “ a great course to take in the beginning” |
| Evolutionary Ecology | IB 443 |
Fall | Ken Paige | “good information to fulfill evolution area of emphasis for PB students” “you write a paper and a Sigma Xi grant proposal - so some good practice here.” |
| Insect Ecology | IB 444 | Fall | May Berenbaum | “includes optional lab, good course for non-native speakers because the course packet consists of all the lectures written out” |
| Chemical Ecology | IB 445 | Fall | May Berenbaum, Dave Seigler | |
| Field Ecology | IB 447 | |||
| Conservation Biology | IB 451 (ENVST 420, CPSC 436) | Spring | Ken Paige | |
| Ecosystem Ecology | IB 452 | Fall | Feng Sheng Hu | “...moderately difficult, overlap with Steve Long's Global Change Biology...” |
| Community Ecology | IB 453 |
Fall | Jim Dalling | “moderately difficult, useful, good discussion sections...” |
| Introduction to Entomology | IB 460 | Fall | Larry Hanks | “we focused on insect diversity and insect physiology, less emphasis on ecology” |
| Ecosystem Biogeochemistry | IB 516 | |||
| Environmental Plant Physiology | IB 542 (CPSC 538) |
Spring | Steve Long | “following some brief instruction by Prof. Long, each student takes a subject area and lectures to the class” |
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Systematics and Evolution |
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| Molecular Evolution | IB 402 | Fall | Greg Whit | |
| Ecological Genetics | IB 405 | Fall | Kim Hughes | “oriented towards population genetics” |
| Discussions in Systematic Biology | IB 414 | Sydney Cameron | ||
| Population Genetics | IB 416 (ANSCI 446) | Fall | Roger Shanks | |
| Environmental and Evolutionary Physiology of Animals | IB 426 | Fall | Chris Cheng-DeVries | |
| Computing in Molecular Biology | MCB 432 | Spring | Gary Olsen | |
| Evolutionary Ecology | IB 443 |
Fall | Ken Paige | “good information to fulfill evolution area of emphasis for PB students” “you write a paper and a Sigma Xi grant proposal - so some good practice here.” |
| Principles of Systematics | IB 467 | Fall | Sydney Cameron | |
| Evolutionary Survey of Plants | IB 469 | Fall | Stephen Downie | "My son is looking forward to teaching a new course at the University of Illinois. He says it's a course about land plants and I know it's going to be very good! I think somebody else will be teaching about the water plants." - Dr. Downie's Mother. |
| Discussions in Systematic Biology | IB 514 | Spring | Chris Dietrich, Felipe Soto-Adames and Jim Whitfield | |
| Applied Bioinformatics | CPSC 569 | Spring | Gustavo Caetano-Anolles |
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Biochemistry and Genetics |
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| Cell Structure and Function | MCB 400 | Fall | Lyne Levesque and Kevin Xiang | |
| Genetics and Genomics | MCB 405 | Spring | Dave Rivier | |
| Gene Expression | MCB 406 | Spring | Dave Shapiro and Craig Mizzen | |
| Computing in Molecular Biology | MCB 432 | Spring | Gary Olsen | |
| Physical Biochemistry II | MCB 446 | Spring | Satish Nair and Tony Crofts | |
| Introductory Biochemistry | MCB 450 | Fall & Spring | Richard Mintel | |
| Molecular Plant Biology | IB 472 | Ray Zielinski | “we discussed articles, in-depth look at various molecular techniques” | |
| Genomics | IB 473 | Ray Ming | ||
| Proteomics | IB 474 | Steve Huber | ||
| Metabolomics | IB 475 | Hans Bohnert | ||
| Discussions in Plant Physiology & Biochemistry | IB496 | Fall & Spring | Steve Huber and Hans Bohnert | |
| Advanced Molecular Genetics | MCB 502 | Fall | Chris Schoenherr and Brian Freeman | |
| Statistical Genomics | ANSC 545 | Spring | Sondra Rodriquez-Zas | |
| Biomolecular Physics | MCB 550 | Spring | Klaus Schulten | |
| Molecular Marker Data Analyses | CPSC 564 | Summer I, alternate years | John Dudley and Martin Bohn | |
| Pearl for Unix and Bioinformatics | CPSC 565 | Spring | Matthew Hudson | |
| Plant Gene Regulation | CPSC 566 | Spring | Lila Vodkin | |
| Bioinformatics and Systems Biology | CPSC 567 | Fall | Gustavo Caetano-Anolles | |
| Recombinant DNA Technology Lab | CPSC 568 | Spring (2 wks in May) | Steve Moose | |
| CPSC 569 | Spring | Gustavo Caetano-Anolles | ||
| Courses in Biophysics and Computational Biology | ||||
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Statistics and Quantitative Methods |
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| Earth Modeling Systems | ATMOS 421 | Spring | George Gertner, Stephen Hurst, Bruce Hannon | “moderately difficult, good intro to basic modeling and the use of STELLA, however I would recommend either Geography 468: Biological Modeling or Geography 369: Spatial Ecosystem Modeling, which I would have taken were they not full at the time” but “I would have learned more about STELLA from just reading a book” |
| Computing in Molecular Biology | MCB 432 | Spring | Gary Olsen | |
| Applied Statistical Methods I | CPSC 440 | Fall & Spring | German Bollero | “an easy but absolutely essential course unless you already know how to use SAS. Should ideally be followed with CPSC 540 with Bullock (which is only offered in the Spring so those departing early for field season cannot take it) or at the very least, IB 493, Statistical Ecology, Brawn, Fall. IB 493 is a moderately hard course which introduces many statistical methods used in ecological studies. Good course to introduce techniques, but does not use SAS, which is a big downfall.” |
| Biological Modeling | GEOG 468 | Fall | Bruce Hannon | “very basic introduction to STELLA” |
| Mathematical Modeling in Life Sciences | IB 487 | Spring | Michael Murphy | |
| Spatial Ecosystem Modeling | IB 492 (CPSC 449, GEOG 469, NRES 469) | Spring | Bruce Hannon | |
| Statistical Ecology | IB 493 | alternate Falls | Jeff Brawn | “decent introduction to many non parametric statistical methods, very basic. covers exact stats (resampling) and Bayesian techniques, as well as very interesting criticism of the mainstream Fischerian stats everybody uses.” |
| Advanced Studies in Geography | GEOG 495 | Spring | Tom Frank | “Good intro to GIS software package and useful applications. Half of class is spent working on individual project, which is very useful. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to learn GIS. I would recommend contacting Tom to see what course to take." |
| Applied Statistical Methods II | CPSC 540 | Spring | Don Bullock | “provides a strong grounding in experimental design and the use of SAS, one of the most useful classes I've taken while at UIUC, recommend taking CPSC440 with German Bollero as a precursor to this class – CPSC 540 is very difficult - try not to take another time consuming class in the same semester” |
| Statistical Genomics | ANSC 545 | 2nd half of Spring | Sondra Rodriquez-Zas | |
| Courses in Biophysics and Computational Biology | ||||