MB5055 - Biological Oceanography
| Credit points: | 03 |
| Year: | 2011 |
| Student Contribution Band: | Band 4 |
| Administered by: | School of Marine & Tropical Biology |
Available to GDipResMeth, GCertResMeth, GDipSc, MAppSc students.
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 distributions of planktonic species over space and time on a broad range of scales. Students will be required to attend lectures and practical classes in MB3050.
Learning Outcomes
- give a sense of the complex structure of the planktonic community over the full scale of variation across space, time and body size;
- give the student a new conceptual understanding of the ocean as a fabric of living organisms, rather than as a mere water mass;
- 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;
- provide a practical familiarity with the techniques of plankton sampling, identification and analysis.
| Assumed Knowledge: | Students enrolling in this subject should have an undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline (eg biology or environmental science) or have acquired equivalent knowledge through other study. They should have a good understanding of basic biological principles and marine systems and have completed a statistics subject (BS5001 or equivalent). |
| Prerequisites: | BZ5001 or equivalent |
| Inadmissible Subject Combinations: | MB3050 MB3059 |
Availabilities | |
| Townsville, Internal, Study Period 1 | |
| Census Date 24-Mar-2011 | |
| Coordinator: | Professor Michael Kingsford |
| Lecturers: | Assoc. Professor Kirsten Heimann, Professor Michael Kingsford. |
| Contact hours: |
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| Assessment: | end of semester exam (50%); assignments (30%); laboratory reports; (20%). |
Note: Minor variations might occur due to the continuous Subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.