BB837: Biodiversity: Protection and Management (5 ECTS)

STADS: 04013101

Level
Master's level course

Teaching period
The course is offered in the spring semester.

Teacher responsible
Email: dalia@biology.sdu.dk

Timetable
Show entire timetable
Show personal time table for this course.

Prerequisites:
None

Academic preconditions:
Bachelor in Biology or similar level.

Course introduction
This is an introductory course on Biodiversity Conservation and Management. Conservation biology is a recent interdisciplinary scientific field were scientists focus on three general questions.

1. How is the diversity of life distributed around the planet?
2. What threats does this biodiversity face?
3. What can people do to reduce or eliminate these threats and, when possible, restore biological diversity and ecosystem health?

In this course students will be exposed to: (i) the theory and practical concepts of Conservation Biology from a global (Macroecological pespective) to local scale (management of populations and genetic variability), (ii) different methodologies (e.g. protected areas design, conservation prioritization), and (iii) the understanding of how derived results be used to support the development of management strategies to conserve biodiversity. Students will learn the basic theory behind the main conservation issues and will be exposed to study cases that show conservation challenges in both low income and high-income countries and globally.

Qualifications
Students will learn the basic theories, methods and polemics in the field of conservation biology. Students will develop a project where they will formulate hypotheses to test and answer basic conservation questions. Including project design, obtaining and analysing data, discussing and drawing conclusions from the results in the context conservation theories and their application to practical management and policy actions.

Expected learning outcome
By the end of the course, the students will be expected to:

• Understand basic concepts and theory on Conservation Biology and its linkage to policy.
• Be familiar to current theoretical and practical examples with a strong emphasis on the methods available for conservation and management issues at different scales.
• Be familiar with the basic principles behind different approaches to conservation techniques such as prioritization, protected areas and corridor design.
• Be aware of some of the challenges in the application of conservation programs between low-income and high-income countries.
• Be exposed on how to set local conservation issues in the context of global conservation.
• Be able to assess the relevance of scientific and grey literature on conservation, particularly in applied conservation projects.

Subject overview


Literature
There isn't any litterature for the course at the moment.

Website
This course uses e-learn (blackboard).

Prerequisites for participating in the exam
Submission and approval of mandatory assignments, quizzes and participation. Pass/fail, internal evaluation by teacher (04013012)

Assessment and marking:
Presentation of final project (04013102) Internal examinar, graded after 7 mark scale.

Expected working hours
The teaching method is based on three phase model.
Intro phase: 28 hours
Skills training phase: 28 hours, hereof:
 - Tutorials: 18 hours
 - Excursion: 8 hours

Educational activities Study phase: 28 hours

Language
This course is taught in English.

Remarks
The course is open to Ph.d. students

Course enrollment
See deadline of enrolment.

Tuition fees for single courses
See fees for single courses.