Biology: Limnology and Marine Ecology - Organisms and Habitats

The course covers the different plants and animals living in lakes, rivers, and seas, as well as their habitats. Through field excursions, you will have the opportunity to study animals and plants in their natural environment. You will learn various sampling methods for water, plankton, invertebrates, macroalgae, macrophytes, and fish. During a one-week excursion, you will work with sampling from boats and through snorkeling with wetsuit. You will gain knowledge about a wide range of species, where they are found, and how different physical and chemical factors control their distribution and occurrence at different locations and times. You will learn how to write excursion reports, present your results orally in groups, and discuss the findings in seminars. The course also covers human impacts on various aquatic systems.

The course begins with lectures on different habitats in limnic and marine environments, followed by practical exercises in species identification of plants and animals. This prepares you for the one-week-long excursion to the west and east coasts, where we collect plants and animals from these different ecosystems. You will learn many species and link their presence to the abiotic factors of the environments they live in. During this field week, you will also learn to use various sampling methods, both from boats and through snorkeling in the water. We will stay at a hostel in Blekinge on the Baltic Sea coast and in northwestern Skåne, near the North Sea. Afterward, you will learn about the chemical and physical factors in open waters of lakes and sea, as well as the pelagic ecosystems. We will also conduct excursions to a lake and the sea, where you will learn various water sampling methods. We will sample and analyze plankton communities from both a lake and the sea. You will also analyze different chemical and physical variables in the laboratory and discuss the similarities and differences between lakes and sea in seminars.

Prerequisites

For admission to the course, 90 credits scientific studies including knowledge equivalent to BIOC13 Ecology 15 credits and 5 credits statistics is required. English 6/B.

Selection criteria

Seats are allocated according to: ECTS (HPAV): 100 %.

Tuition fees for non-EU/EEA citizens

Citizens of countries outside:

• The European Union (EU)
• The European Economic Area (EEA) and
• Switzerland

are required to pay tuition fees. You pay an instalment of the tuition fee in advance of each
semester.

Tuition fees, payments and exemptions

Full programme/course tuition fee: SEK 46,250
First payment: SEK 46,250

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Note that you may also need to pay an application fee, or provide proof of exemption.

Application fee

No tuition fees for citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland

There are no tuition fees for citizens of the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.