Deep Sea Ecology

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Identify threats to deep-sea ecosystems in the context of impacts of human activities and global change.
• Recognise the physico-chemical factors that influence ecological patterns deep-sea environments
• Understand how physico-chemical factors affect processes in deep-sea faunal assemblages.
• Critically evaluate the latest research in deep-sea ecology.
• Link a variety of ecological variables with their consequences in deep-sea habitats, including species diversity, biomass and zonation.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Knowledge of ecological patterns and processes in the largest biome on Earth.

This module explores the ecological processes that produce the patterns of life in deep-sea environments. The “deep sea” is defined by a water depth greater than 200 metres, which covers most of the surface of our planet. But the “deep sea” is not a single environment: it encompasses a range of habitats, such as soft-sediment abyssal plains, hard-substratum seamounts, and chemosynthetic environments such as hydrothermal vents and cold seeps.

These deep-sea habitats often have distinct environmental conditions and ecological features, but their patterns of life are governed by the same key biological processes and interactions, such as reproduction, dispersal, competition, and resource partitioning. Although only recently accessible to investigation, deep-sea environments therefore offer a rich “natural laboratory” in which we can examine the consequences of fundamental ecological processes in different environmental settings.

The module begins by introducing the technology and analytical tools used to perceive ecological patterns in deep-sea environments, then considers large-scale and small-scale spatial and temporal variation in the ecology of deep-sea environments, and finally examines the processes and interactions that generate those patterns. Students gain experience of analysing real data from ecological surveys of deep-sea environments, including large-scale patterns in diversity and small-scale variation in faunal distribution revealed by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dive transect.

This is a Masters-level ecology module, and therefore assumes a background knowledge in ecology (e.g. SOES2017 Marine Benthic Ecology is recommended for MSci students taking this module; postgraduate MSc students choosing this module should be familiar with multivariate analysis of ecological data, for example from previous non-marine degree studies).

Teaching and learning methods

The course will be delivered using lectures and occasional guest seminars.

Formal Lectures: Lectures are systematically placed to provide important background knowledge and will cover the main concepts and topics by the use of PowerPoint presentations. Where relevant, lecturers' own research experience in the appropriate fields is brought into the lecturing sessions. Relevant journal articles are provided as essential reading for each lecture.

Seminar Series: occasional seminars, depending on speaker availability, are delivered by guest speakers to cover topics at the forefront of deep sea ecology.

Tutorial support: All students are encouraged to discuss any aspect of the course with the relevant member of the lecturing staff.

A wide range of support can be provided for those students who have further or specific learning and teaching needs.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.