MB3050:03
Plankton of the Seas and Oceans
Townsville
26 lectures, 13 seminars, 26 hours practicals, 8 hours field work. First semester.
Staff: Assoc. Professor C Alexander.
An examination of the plankton community and its interactions with the physical and chemical environment. Topics include: nutrients and productivity, zooplankton behaviour and life cycles and the distribution of planktonic species over space and time on a broad range of scales.
Learning Objectives:
- to give the student a new conceptual understanding of the ocean as a fabric of living organisms, rather than as a mere water mass;
- to provide a practical familiarity with the techniques of plankton sampling, identification and analysis;
- to impress upon the student the fundamental significance of the plankton as the foundation of the economy of the sea and the nursery for most of its species;
- to give a sense of the complex structure of the planktonic community over the full scale of variation across space, time and body size.
Assessment by a three-hour examination (60%); laboratory report (20%); tutorial assignment (20%).