MB3180:03
Biology of Tropical Crustaceans
Townsville
Prerequisites: Consult Academic Adviser
26 lectures, 5 tutorials, 39 hours practicals. First semester.
Staff: Assoc. Professor C Alexander.
A review of functional morphology in relation to food procurement, ingestion and processing, aspects of sensory physiology and behaviour, microanatomy of neural and feeding structures. A comparative approach uses a wide range of common tropical species, e.g. prawns, crabs, mantis shrimps and barnacles.
Learning Objectives:
- thorough knowledge of crustacean anatomy and functional morphology;
- an understanding of some fundamental physiological processes e.g. digestion, vision;
- practical experience in a number of techniques: microdissection techniques; histology and optical microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, methods of video recording of feeding mechanisms and behavioural sequences and their interpretation.
Assessment by abstract (10%); two laboratory reports (20%); written examination (70%).
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