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Unit information: Oceans in 2021/22

Unit name Oceans
Unit code BIOL30011
Credit points 10
Level of study H/6
Unit director Professor. Genner
Open unit status Not open




School/department School of Biological Sciences
Faculty Faculty of Life Sciences

Description including Unit Aims

Marine ecosystems provide a wealth of opportunity to teach biological phenomena through engaging and thought-provoking examples. We will teach key concepts relating to the evolution and ecology of life in oceanic systems. We will examine evidence of how oceanic ecosystems have changed over evolutionary timescales, and the drivers of spatial and temporal patterns of oceanic biodiversity over macroecological gradients. We will discuss how the distributions and behaviours of marine species are related to environmental variables, and the sensory, morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations that have enabled species to occupy those niches. We will describe how technological advances in fields such as sensing, telemetry and genomics are helping us to understand the marine biodiversity in more detail than ever before. We will describe the latest evidence for human impacts on marine ecosystems and discuss proposed strategies for mitigation and conservation. Throughout the course we will emphasise how methodological and technological innovation has and will continue to be critical for providing the increasingly robust insights that developed the field over recent years.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. Explain how and why the oceans have changed over long evolutionary timescales
  2. Describe the processes that drive the structure of marine biodiversity
  3. Illustrate how key environmental variables affect biological communities and ecological interactions.
  4. Explain how sensory, morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations have evolved through natural selection.
  5. Describe the challenges faced by marine organisms in the Anthropocene, and measures to mitigate or alleviate those human- induced challenges where possible.
  6. Evaluate the strength of scientific evidence presented in scientific papers relevant to the theories presented in the unit
  7. Apply understanding of underlying key principles (1-5 above) to construct research agendas to study and explain novel scenarios.
  8. Combine knowledge of scientific literature to support research proposed in 7, above.

Teaching Information

Lectures, directed reading, research and/or problem-solving activities; and independent study.

Assessment Information

Summative written assessment, with one essay question to be selected from a choice of two.




How much time the unit requires

