This course will be of interest to students wishing to understand how organisms interact with one another and with their environment, and how changes to the environment (including those caused by humans) may affect these interactions. Students will explore the main ecological processes in terms of individuals, populations and communities. Individuals are considered in terms of their physiological interactions with the environment and the causes of migration, dispersal and mortality, scaling up to different models of population growth. Ecological interactions such as, competition, predation and parasitism’s lead to population-level processes, while larger-scale phenomena (such as energy flow and community structure) underpin an understanding of community and ecosystem ecology. Agriculture, Disease, Pollution and Conservation – key areas where humans and their environment interact – are also considered from the standpoint of applied biology.


Skill Level: Beginner