BIOSM 1610

Ecology and the Marine Environment

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course provides an introduction to ecology, covering interactions between marine organisms and the environment at scales of populations, communities, and ecosystems. This course is suitable for life sciences majors.

Forbidden Overlaps BIOEE 1610, BIOSM 1610

Distribution Requirements (BIO-AG, BSC-AG, OPHLS-AG), (BIO-AS)

Exploratory Studies (CU-SBY)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2024SU, 2022SU, 2021SU, 2019SU

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to explain where and why different biomes occur globally as a function of Earth's climate dynamics.
• Students will be able to describe how plants and animals cope with environmental variation through a range of adaptations that modify their respective heat and water balances.
• Students will be able to describe processes of autotrophic and heterotrophic means of energy acquisition, and tradeoffs among these strategies.
• Students will be able to apply fundamental principles of population growth and demography, including application to human populations and population harvest.
• Students will be able to explain species interactions including predation, parasitism, competition, and mutualism.
• Students will be able to describe community ecology, including factors that control patterns of species distribution, diversity, and abundance.
• Students will be able to apply their understanding of broad biogeographical patterns of species distributions, including hypotheses explaining latitudinal species gradients, species diversity on islands, and the application of island biogeography theory to the design of nature reserves.
• Students will be able to identify and describe threats to biodiversity and key principles of conservation biology.
• Students will be able to describe major pathways and mechanisms of nutrient cycling, including nutrient inputs, acquisition strategies, limitation, and losses, and major human impact on these cycles.
• Students will be able to identify causes, general magnitudes, and likely consequences of human-driven alterations to global cycles of carbon, nutrients, and climate.

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