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Unit of Study BIO10123 - Marine Communities as Sentinels of Change (2020)

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Unit Snapshot

  • Enrolment information

    Offered only at the National Marine Science Centre in a 3-week intensive mode, which includes a compulsory 6-day residential held outside normal residential weeks for all students. Please refer to https://www.scu.edu.au/timetables for further information on timetables. To avoid timetable and assessment clashes, it is recommended that on-campus students do not take NMSC intensives at the same time as on-campus session-based units. It is best to take intensives in a block, in the final year of study, or in conjunction with online units.

Unit description

Examines the range of natural marine communities occurring on rocky substrates, their ecological structure and function, links between communities, and their responses to natural and human-induced disturbances. Students will be actively involved with quantitative field studies of various subtropical marine communities.

Unit content

The schedule of topics is spread between lectures, field studies, workshops and laboratory classes:

Principles of community ecology (a refresher)
Communities of rocky shores
Communities of subtidal reefs
Aspects of functional ecology
Communities as sentinels of change (case studies)

Availabilities

Location Domestic International
National Marine Science Centre Coffs Harbour
Session1
Session1
Online
Session1
N/A

Learning outcomes and graduate attributes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

GA1: Intellectual rigour, GA2: Creativity, GA3: Ethical practice, GA4: Knowledge of a discipline, GA5: Lifelong learning, GA6: Communication and social skills, GA7: Cultural competence
Learning outcome count Learning outcome description GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7
1 describe the main types of hard marine substrates and the biota that inhabits them
2 explain the primary biotic and abiotic processes affecting marine organisms in different habitats
3 discuss the suitability of different communities for monitoring environmental condition.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. describe the main types of hard marine substrates and the biota that inhabits them
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
  2. explain the primary biotic and abiotic processes affecting marine organisms in different habitats
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
  3. discuss the suitability of different communities for monitoring environmental condition.
    • GA1:
    • GA2:
    • GA4:

Prescribed learning resources

Prescribed Texts
  • No prescribed texts.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.