Course Description

The ecology of organisms, populations, and communities occurring in marine environments.

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Athena Title

MARINE ECOLOGY

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Prerequisite

ECOL(BIOL) 3500-3500L or permission of department

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Semester Course Offered

Offered spring

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Grading System

A - F (Traditional)

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Course Objectives

Students will gain in-depth knowledge of the fundamentals of population and community ecology and their application to marine environments. Students will improve their analytical and experimental design skills by critically reading primary literature and writing up a formal grant proposal that requires them to formulate a hypothesis and address it with replicated experiments. Student mastery of the material will be measured by 2 exams and the proposal write-up.

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Topical Outline

I. Overview of Marine Environments II. Primary Producers in Marine Environments Producers and processes involved in primary production Factors affecting primary production Nutrient limitation Eutrophication III. Comsumers in Marine Environments Dynamics of populations of consumers Competition for resources among consumers Feeding and responses to food abundance Food selection by consumers Processing of consumed energy Energy budgets IV. Structure and Dynamics of Marine Communities Trophic Structure Food webs Stable isotopes Taxonomic structure: Species diversity Spatial Structure: Patchiness Habitat Development of Structure in marine communities: Colonization Succession

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