This option is available within the Botany major at the following locations:

• Corvallis
• Ecampus

The Mycology and Plant Pathology option (MPP) combines plant pathology, mycology, microbiology and entomology to provide botany students with necessary additional background to pursue careers in these important fields. The courses are drawn from upper-division undergraduate offerings in Botany, Microbiology, Entomology, Forestry, Horticulture, Soil Science and Biological Data Science.

Option Code: 008

Upon successful completion of the program, students will meet the following learning outcomes:

• Communicate scientific concepts, experimental results and analytical arguments clearly and concisely verbally and in writing.
• Apply scientific methods, reasoning and appropriate mathematics to describe, explain and understand biological systems.
• Demonstrate understanding of five core concepts in biology: evolution; pathways and transformations of energy and matter; information flow, exchange, and storage; structure and function; and biological systems.
• Use interdisciplinary approaches (applying chemistry and quantitative skills) to work on biological problems.
• Describe the complex networks of interactions that determine energy flow and the cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and minerals within ecosystems.
• Identify and analyze the anatomical and morphological features of plants and plant structures as they enable plant function and reveal plant evolutionary histories.
• Recognize and describe the features of vascular plant groups using standard botanical terminology. Interpret the evolutionary and phylogenetic relationships of plants by evaluating analytical and experimental tools used to understand organismal diversity.
• Incorporate information from physiology, genetics, developmental biology, biochemistry and genomics to explain how plants integrate water-relations, mineral and organic nutrition, solute transport, respiration and photosynthesis, hormonal and environmental signals to regulate the processes of growth and reproduction.
• Describe and implement laboratory methods typically used in plant biology.

The total requirements of the Botany Core are shown in the Catalog. The BOT core includes courses in plant structure, ecology, physiology, evolution, systematics, statistics, and genomics that form the botanical background for this field. Outside of the core courses, BOT majors have 44–49 elective credits that can be chosen from a group of approved courses. Up to 16 credits of the MPP option can be drawn from the approved electives. The 4 credits of mycology (BOT 461) also fulfill the BOT requirement for a non-vascular plant course.

To encourage students in the option to learn actively and obtain practical skills, up to 3 credits of approved experiential learning can be applied to the option. The MPP option credits are drawn from approved elective course credits. The core course requirements of the BOT major are not changed by doing the option, and no additional credits are required to complete it.

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Baccalaureate Core Course (BCC)

Option Code: 008