Introduction
Department of Zoology has a large teaching program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. There are approximately 300 undergraduate majors in three curricula: Environmental Sciences, Fish and Wildlife Sciences and Zoology. Many students have interests in medicine and allied health fields. A large percentage of graduates go on to graduate and professional schools. The others find employment in a diversity of careers including R&D firms, sales, environmental consulting, state and federal agencies that manage natural resources, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms.

The Department has a vigorous graduate program and offers degrees through the graduate curricula of Biomathematics, Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Physiology, Functional Genomics, and Zoology. Typically 70 to 80 students are in residence pursuing masters and doctoral degrees in areas of expertise that are represented within the faculty, including behavioral biology, conservation biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, fisheries biology, physiology, developmental and cellular biology and fish and wildlife sciences. The success of our graduate program is a reflection of the quality of the research program conducted by departmental faculty.

The Departmental research program is diverse and ranges from applied to fundamental. The program in aquaculture has supported the development and conduct of an industry that raises hybrid striped bass, tilapia, trout, catfish and flounder. Programs in developmental biology explore the mechanisms by which organ systems differentiate and develop. The large and successful program in ecology, evolution and conservation biology includes studies in population biology, habitat requirements and utilization, and sexual selection across a variety of organisms including fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and vascular plants. Fisheries research includes studies on habitat requirements and utilization, stock assessment, and recruitment in coastal rivers, estuaries, the near coastal ocean and fresh water. The program in neurobiology and behavior studies development and function of the nervous system and mechanisms controlling behavior and includes the activities of the W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology. The program in endocrinology and environmental physiology studies fundamental mechanisms of osmoregulation, growth, reproduction and circadian behaviors and explores relationships between environmental cues and physiology and behavior.

The Department of Zoology is housed in David Clark Laboratories, a new state-of-the-art facility of 100,000 square feet, that contains offices, classrooms, teaching laboratories, research laboratories and a variety of specialty facilities such as cold rooms, tissue and cell culture rooms, and imaging labs. Approximately 30 resident faculty, their graduate students and post-doctoral associates, and laboratory and clerical support staff occupy the building. Other faculty members are stationed off-campus at the Center for Marine Sciences and Technology in Morehead City and the Mountain Horticultural Research Station in Fletcher. Departmental faculty members also conduct aquacultural research at the Pamlico Aquaculture Field Lab in Aurora, the Vernon James Center in Plymouth and the Lake Wheeler Road Field Lab in Raleigh