Knowledge of biodiversity is fundamental to understanding our world. Students will become familiar with biological diversity and evolutionary relatedness of taxa, beginning with viruses and leading through to microbes, plants, fungi and animals. Defining characteristics of major organismal groupings will be highlighted so as to provide students with an overview of the diversity of life on Earth, and the critical role that maintaining biodiversity has for appropriate governance of natural resources.

Course guide

Achievement Objectives

• At the end of this course, students will be able to:
• Understand biodiversity. What it is, how we measure it and why it is important?
• Understand microbial, plant and animal taxonomy.
• Describe the role and importance of microbes in all ecosystems, including the human microbiome.
• Recognise the main types of fungi, and understand the negative and positive impacts on plants and animals, including humans.
• Understand the importance of plants and describe the evolutionary reduction of gamete-producing generation of plants.
• Describe the origin of agriculture and the importance of plant domestication.
• Apply their knowledge of abiotic and biotic stressors to understand the affect pathogens have on plants.
• Understand the basics of what constitutes an animal.
• Understand the major evolutionary steps that have led to today’s animal biodiversity.
• Describe some physiological differences and similarities amongst animal groups.