Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences degrees emphasize resource management at organismal, population, or ecosystem scales. An emphasis on resource management helps distinguish our program from basic biology; therefore, course work in fisheries or wildlife management, environmental science, resource policy, or other applied ecology fields is advantageous. An applicant contemplating graduate work in fisheries, limnology, conservation biology or wildlife should have a strong background in biological and physical sciences, including biology, botany, zoology, ecology, physiology and genetics. In addition, such taxonomic courses as plant taxonomy, invertebrate zoology, ichthyology, ornithology and mammalogy are highly desirable, as is a background in chemistry, mathematics, statistics and physics.