Certificate of Ecology

Unit 1 – Ecosystems and Populations

• Ecology
• Types of ecology:
• Behavioural ecology,
• Population ecology,
• Community and ecosystem ecology
• Biomes
• Ecosystems (energy and nutrients)
• The food web
• Populations: diversity, habitat, niche, and growth rates
• Interactions in the community: competition and predation
• Co-evolution
• Succession and climax communities

Unit 2 – The Development of Life

•  Average lifespan
• Evolutionary considerations on lifespan
• Theories on the limits of lifespan
• Evolution: what evolution means
• Evidence of organic evolution
• The anatomical and physiological argument
• The paleontological argument
• The embryological argument
• Steps in organic evolution
• Multicellular organisms
• The evolution of sex
• The origin of vertebrates: the emergence of man
• Factors in organic evolution
• Germ cells and variations
• Natural selection
• Population genetics
• The synthetic theory
• Speciation
• Genetic drift
• Trans-specific evolution
• Present day evolutionary debate
• Human evolution and evolutionary patterns

Unit 3 – Animals, Parasites and Endangered Species

• Animals in the ecosystem
• Animals in the human community
• Animals
• Phylum and classes of the animal kingdom
• Summary of phyla: the parazoa, the mesozoa, the radiata, phylum coelenterata and phylum ctenophora
• The acoelomate bilateria
• The pseudocoelomates
• Eucoelomates (the tentaculata)
• Eucoelomates (the trochozoa): phylum annelida, phylum sipuncula, phylum mollusca, phylum arthropoda
• Eucoelomates (the Deuterostomia)
• Parasites: human parasites and parasitic plants
• Endangered species: the causes of extinction and efforts for preservation
• Case study (threatened animal species in Queensland, Australia

Unit 4 – Fungi, Tundra, Rainforests and Marshlands

• Fungi: introduction
• Types of fungi
• The structure of fungi
• The reproduction of fungi
• The physiology of fungus
• Poisoning by fungi
• The ecology of fungus
• The uses of fungi
• The classification of fungi
• Tundra: introduction, the climate and land formation, plant life on the tundra
• Rainforests: the ecology
• The vegetation
• Creatures of the rainforest
• The canopy
• The under-storey
• Clearing the rainforest
• Marshland: introduction, freshwater marshes and saltwater marshes

Unit 5 – Mountains, Rivers and Deserts

•  Mountains
• The formation of mountains
• The importance of mountains, volcanoes and erosion
• Rivers
• The formation of rivers, dams (ponds)
• River catchments and urban catchments
• Cleaning up stormwater
• Reducing pollutants
• Sedimentation
• Nutrients
• Other toxicants
• Damming of rivers
• Deserts: wind systems and land formation
• Plant adaptations to the desert
• Animal adaptations to the desert
• Human impacts on deserts and the spreading deserts

Unit 6 – Shallow Waters

• Estuaries
• Major natural processes occurring in coastal environments
• Rocky shores: threats and what individuals can do
• Sandy shores: threats
• Types of coral reefs
• Origin of coral reefs
• Composition of coral reefs

Unit 7 – Ecological Problems

• The greenhouse effect
• Global warming
• Climate change and growing awareness
• International efforts to combat climate change
• The actual and potential effects
• Global temperature rise
• Sea level rise and impacts on weather systems
• Greenhouse gases (GHG)
• Ozone: the ozone layer
• The causes and effects of ozone depletion
• Poisons in the home
• Poisons on the farm (pesticides)
• Environmental and health impacts of pesticides
• Waste materials