Plant and animal diversity: values and risks

The main purposes of the course are:
1. to identify the most important plants and animals (both useful and harmful), their approximate taxonomic placement and their economic relevance on a local and global scale
2. to recognize animals and plants and products thereof encountered in everyday life.
3. to understand the issues related to the process of domestication of plants, its consequences, the potential of technology to improve sustainability of agriculture and wildlife exploitation, and the effects, both positive and negative, of regulatory oversight.

At the end of the course the students should be able to evaluate both domesticated and wild forms of plants and animals as resources of economic relevance and to identify species for their potential to be or to become useful or harmful to humans and ecosystems.