ENV BIOL 2530 - Zoology II (Marine Biology)

The course will progress students' understanding of the link between the structure and function of organisms using marine invertebrates. This understanding is made through the use of concepts of phylogeny across the enormous diversity of marine life and progresses to land animals. Major change to marine environments has driven evolution which is demonstrated through adaptations to parasitism, the marine environment and life on land. Using the extraordinary discoveries in the marine realm, cutting edge thinking will be used to explain the emergence of new species and concepts. The biology of the vertebrates will follow groups from fishes to terrestrial vertebrates, including the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The lectures on animal adaptations provide an account of the major evolutionary hurdles in evolution from which all life evolved from the ocean.