This is a rare course in the modem age of college education, an interdisciplinary course open only by application and interview, that occupies one whole semester (13 units), with a student : teacher ratio of about 2:1, featuring all-inclusive research experience and full immersion in the life of science and a foreign culture. The 15 students spend a month in Berkeley for lectures and labs five days a week, then go to the Richard B. Gump South Pacific Biological Research Station on Moorea in French Polynesia for two months to carry out an intensive research project as well as some general educational field trips and group projects, finally returning to Berkeley for two weeks of non-stop data analysis, library research, and writing. Following a round of peer reviews, the students prepare camera-ready copies for their papers and give an oral presentation in a professional-style symposium. The 1996 class, whose papers follow in this book, set new standards of achievement and formed bonds with each other and the teaching staff that will last a long time. The professors (who spent 1-3 week periods each on Moorea) and the Graduate Student Instructors (who spent the whole two months on Moorea) had a unique opportunity to help each student design their project, go with them in the field, observe their data-gathering and work habits, and assist them in the analysis and write-up phase. This close living and working situation allows the transfer of fundamental methods, theories, and even attitudes about science, in addition to the expected transfer of basic information about islands and their biology.