Curriculum Information

Concepts of habitats, communities, ecosystems and niches. Underlying principles of biodiversity and introduction to the approaches used in conservation of biodiversity. Protected areas, types, and effectiveness. Conservation planning and priorities. Biodiversity hotspots – general concept and case study in terms of causes of diversity, migration and speciation of organisms. 

Relevance of population sciences to species and habitat conservation including introduction to population dynamics - minimum viable populations, inbreeding and outbreeding, homogenous and heterogenous populations. Fragile and robust ecosystems. Rarity definition and measurement. Fragmentation and edge effects. Population modelling and extinction vulnerability analysis using various software packages (RAMAS Ecolab, Excel, etc.).

Assessment of the impacts of various agricultural systems on natural and semi-natural ecosystems. 

The effects of climate change on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems including review of the natural and anthropogenic causes of climate changes. Projected effects on ecosystems using national and international examples. Tropical forests – characteristics, overexploitation of resources, practical problems and proposed solutions in conservation.

Freshwater conservation - The physical, chemical and biological characteristics of rivers and lakes. River catchments, hydrological processes in rivers and lake dynamics. The freshwater biota of lentic and lotic waters: algae, macrophytes, invertebrates and vertebrates. Methods of measuring primary productivity and plant communities. Lentic habitats. Key nutrients and nutrient limitations. Models of lake productivity. Eutrophication and acidification of lakes and their treatment.

Marine conservation – marine systems, e.g. pelagic ecosystems, estuaries, seagrass, mangroves and coral reefs; marine impacts, e.g. fisheries, disturbance, aquaculture, pollution, climate change, and the conservation implications of these impacts. This will be supported by contemporary case studies, e.g. marine protected areas (national context), pelagic fisheries and seabirds.