What is Environmental Biology (EB)?
Environmental biology is the subset of biological science focused on how living systems interact with their environment. Broadly speaking, this covers ecology (the science of the interactions between organisms and their living and non-living environment), evolutionary biology (how organisms change through time), and landscape- and ecosystem-scale science. Our courses and research programs generally focus on whole organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems. This field is sometimes called “organismal biology” or “ecology and evolutionary biology” at other institutions.
Dr. Matthew Palmer is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for this program. You should always feel free to contact him, but you may find some answers to your questions through links to the Bulletin, FAQs, Research Opportunities, and Careers.
How does the Environmental Biology program compare with related undergraduate programs at Columbia?
The Environmental Biology program has overlaps with other biology-focused programs like Biology, Neuroscience and Behavior, and Computational Biology. All these programs study living systems, but environmental biology tends to focus on the external interactions of organisms (how organisms interact with other living things and with the physical environment), where the other biology fields have more focus on processes internal to organisms (cell biology, biochemistry, structural biology, etc.). Environmental biology also includes the study of landscapes and ecosystems, where living organism are only one component of the system.
Environmental Biology also has overlaps with programs in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (Environmental Science, Climate System Science, Climate and Sustainability). Environmental Biology classes and research tend to be focused on the living components of the Earth’s systems, while programs in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences often have a primary emphasis on the physical earth (e.g., geology, atmospheric science, physical oceanography, paleoclimate, etc.).
The Environmental Biology program also overlaps with the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development. Both programs have courses that address the interactions of the living non-human world with human societies. The Sustainable Development program generally has more emphasis on the social sciences while Environmental Biology has more emphasis on the biological sciences.
Program Pathways
Most students interested in Environmental Biology begin with either Environmental Biology I (EEEB 2001) or Environmental Biology II (EEEB 2002), which can be taken in any order. We also offer a one-credit overview course (Introduction to Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology – EEEB 1005). This course introduces the department and our faculty to students interested in the field who are considering this as a major. Many students who are considering the Environmental Biology program may also be considering related majors (Biology, Environmental Science, Sustainable Development). These programs have similar requirements for their first two years (combinations of physical sciences, biological sciences, and quantitative courses), so it usually possible to start with courses that could apply to any program and to decide on a program after experiencing classes in different departments.
While we don’t have formal sub-specialties within the major, the program is flexible enough that students can often tailor their course of study to a particular subdiscipline if desired. Some of these foci could be zoology/animal science, botany/plant science, evolutionary biology, biodiversity and conservation science, animal behavior, and landscape and ecosystem science.