Biological oceanography

• Explain the main factors influencing productivity and species interactions at different trophic levels of the marine ecosystem.
• Describe how individual interactions shape the population and ecosystem level processes and how environmental forcing and anthropogenic stressors influence marine systems at both ecosystem and global scales.
• Demonstrate by simple calculations some basic concepts of biological oceanography such as the dependency of phytoplankton cell size on nutrient concentrations or zooplankton ingestion rate on food concentration.
• Construct simple conceptual food-web and population models within marine environments and explain how they differ from trait-based approaches.
• Develop and conduct a seasonal sampling campaign to investigate the development of the phytoplankton spring bloom and interpret the results in connection to literature and model calculations.
• Analyse and present selected research within biological oceanography based on a recent research article.
• Apply the knowledge of ocean biology to assess the environmental sustainability of diverse off-shore or coastal construction projects.
• Present the results of an environmental impact assessment for a hypothetical project dealing with the marine environment orally and in writing.

The course consists of five elements:
• Ecology of marine organisms, trophic interactions from bacteria and phytoplankton to marine mammals and global-scale processes including anthropogenic disturbances, presented through lectures, quizzes and guest lectures
• Calculation exercises to demonstrate and / or quantify selected processes in the marine environment
• Examples of different approaches to model biological interactions presented through lectures and exercises
• Hands-on experience on sampling and sample analysis of plankton
• Group work on a real-life application of biological oceanography to evaluate the effects of anthropogenic activities for marine ecosystems

The first part of the course is divided between the trophic levels: Phytoplankton, microbial loop, zooplankton, benthos, fish larvae and marine mammals, discussing the environmental forcing at different scales, interactions between functional groups and anthropogenic stressors. The second part of the course will focus on different modelling approaches, and on global scale processes such as the biological carbon pump and on the environmental challenges facing the changing oceans. A group work on the environmental impacts of off-shore projects and the seasonal sampling campaign will run throughout the course. The course includes lectures, exercises, quizzes, model practical, sampling and laboratory analysis and group work.

25301

Lectures, exercises, group work.