Department of Marine Science

Department of Marine Science | Academics | Course Offerings | MAR 401/501 Syllabus | Biological Oceanography

MAR 401/501 and MAR 401L/501L

Spring Semester, 2005
Biological Oceanography/
Biological Oceanography Laboratory
TBA

dotLECTURE COURSE ORGANIZATION

There will be 15 lecture class meetings this semester, including 2, 1.5 hour Midterm Exams. There will also be a 3 hour Final Exam. The first day of class will be 1/13 and the final lecture will be 5/4. Midterm I will be given on 2/17 and Midterm II on 4/6. You will have the first half of the class session (1.5 hours) to complete each of these exams (*** note that we will meet in the lab to set up an experiment first on the day of Midterm I). The Final Exam is scheduled for 5/11, 1230 – 1530. Each Midterm will cover a specific set of material. The Final will be about half comprehensive (cover topics from the entire course). The remaining part will emphasize the material presented after Midterm II. Note that during the week of February 16 – 20, the ASLO/TOS Ocean Research Conference will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii. I will be attending this conference, so the TA, Ms. Pradnya Sawant will proctor Midterm Exam I for you on that day (there will also be a lab session directly after the lecture on that day). Also note that the Mardi Gras Holiday this year is on 2/24 (there will not be class on that day). Spring Break will be the week of March 15 – 19, and thus, there will be no class on 3/16.

Students enrolled in MAR 501/501L will be required to write a term paper that will be due on Tuesday, 4/27. The term paper will be optional for students enrolled in MAR 401/401L. If you do write a term paper, it will help your grade if you do a good job. However, if you do not do well, it will harm your grade. Term paper topics MUST be approved by me before you begin. You must see me BY THE END OF THE DAY ON 3/9 TO GET APPROVAL FOR YOUR TERM PAPER TOPIC. FAILURE TO DO THIS WILL RESULT IN A 10% REDUCTION IN YOUR PAPER SCORE. There is no limit to how long the paper should be. It should be sufficiently long to cover the topic in an intelligent and comprehensive manner - but PLEASE be concise and show a proper sense of proportion.

Grading will be based on the following point breakdown:

Exam/Paper Possible Points
Midterm I 100
Midterm II 100
Term Paper 100
Final Exam 200
Total Points for MAR 501* 500

*400 total points for MAR 401

I will not assign “letter grades” for the paper or the exams. Each student will receive a numerical score for the exams and the paper (0 – 100 for the paper and Midterm Exams, 0 - 200 for the Final Exam). I will explain the “meaning and context” of the numerical scores when the exams or papers are returned. The final course grade will be based on the total number of points earned by each student.

The text for the lecture course is Biological Oceanography, by Charles B. Miller (Charlie is a very good zooplankton ecologist with a very interesting perspective on ocean processes). This is a graduate level text and is brand new. Our lectures will not necessarily follow the text closely, but I do indicate which chapter you should read prior to each lecture in lecture schedule attached to this course syllabus.

For those of you who do not have a background in biology or marine science, you may want to obtain a copy of an optional recommended text. It is Biological Oceanography: An Introduction, by C.M. Lalli and T.R. Parsons. This optional text will provide a background of material for the course. It is very basic and is targeted for students well below the level of Graduate School. However, this background material will provide a foundation upon which we can build.

To further accomplish the “academic growth” that is expected for graduate students, there will be numerous research papers from the marine science literature assigned to supplement the text and the lectures. The papers will be critical in providing a broad-based and comprehensive understanding of the field of biological oceanography. These papers will generally be assigned beforehand and it is strongly recommended that you read them before lecture. They will be available in the Bldg. 1020, Room 183 – your TA’s office – for you to check out and read. Ms. Pradnya Sawant is the TA for this class. She will coordinate the research paper collection. Please be considerate of your fellow students when checking out these papers; the papers MUST be available to all students. Most of the papers can be copied from the collections of the Maury Library on the SSC site as well. I recommend that you go to the library and make your own copies for those articles that can be found there. The copies that I provide are for you to check out and read and are NOT for you to copy.

dotLABORATORY COURSE

The TA for the course is Ms. Pradnya Sawant. We will cover the most basic and more common analytical techniques that are used by biological oceanographers today. The lab exercises will acquaint you with the techniques generally used for these measurements. The text for the lab course is A Manual of Chemical and Biological Methods for Seawater Analysis, by Parsons, Maita and Lalli. Unfortunately, this textbook is out of print. Some of you may already have the book and others may not have a copy. We have obtained permission from the publisher to make copies of the text that will be available for you to purchase. You will also be required to purchase a booklet on laboratory safety entitled Safety in Academic Chemistry Laboratories published by the American Chemical Society. The lab safety text is available in the Department office in Building 1020.

All the laboratory exercises have been copied and compiled for you. These lab exercises include a discussion of the lab procedures and many include a set of questions. You should read each lab exercise and the section in the lab text that deals with the week’s exercise prior to lab session. You will be REQUIRED to write a pre-lab report for each lab session. This pre-lab report will consist of a brief introduction of the laboratory exercise objectives and techniques that will be used. This report will be due at the beginning of each lab session and WILL BE GRADED. A detailed report, using the “standard lab report” format (i.e. introduction, purpose, materials and methods, results, discussion of results, a sample hand written calculation of any results (as applicable) and brief discussion of potential sources of error), for each exercise and the answers to the questions will be due by the start of the next lab exercise. As I mentioned above, each of the lab reports must include a “hand-written” sample of any equations and calculations that were used to derive the results. This will help us to evaluate your degree of understanding of the lab material and procedures. ***NO INCOMPLETE OR LATE REPORTS WILL BE ACCEPTED***. Labs are graded on a 0 - 10 scale. These lab reports, the lab final, the lab project report and your participation in the lab project will be the basis for your lab grade - please take them very seriously.

For this lab class, students will work in groups, usually consisting of 2 students. In this manner, we can conduct experiments that include different treatments or tasks. Each group will be responsible for conducting some part of the exercise. The data will be pooled at the end of the lab session and all students will include all of the lab session results in the calculations and lab reports.


Laboratory Project: This year we will conduct a study in the Bay of St. Louis, Mississippi. We will use the Department of Marine Science boat to collect samples from the bay and we will use subsequent lab sessions to analyze these samples using techniques we have learned in this class. Three lab sessions (4/13, 4/20 and 4/27) have been set aside for you to conduct these analyses. Each lab group will be responsible for conducting a specific set of analyses on the samples. The group will then compile results and prepare both a written standard lab report and an oral report on the experiment. Each group will turn in a single report; all students in the lab group will receive the same grade for the written and oral report - so everyone must make a significant contribution to the project.

On 5/4, each group will present the results of their analyses in an oral presentation during the lab time slot. The written project reports will be due at this time. The class will then discuss the implications of the results we have obtained. These oral reports and the ensuing discussion will constitute the final exam for the lab course.

The laboratory grade will be determined from your lab report grades (50%), your written lab project report (25%) and the lab final exam (25%).

dotGENERAL

I will generally be available in my office in the Department offices in Bldg. 1020, Room 185 (688-1174; Donald.Redalje@usm.edu). I would like to set up office hours for Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, 1330 – 1530. If you need to consult with me at a time other than these, please contact me and arrange a suitable time. Should you need to consult with Ms. Sawant about the lab exercises, please make arrangements with her. She will establish a set of office hours when she will be available for consultation. Note that all questions about lecture class material should be directed to me - and not to Ms. Sawant. She will help you with laboratory matters only and will be in charge of the lecture class reading materials, and remember that she is also a student in the program and has her own studies and work to accomplish.

dotADA COMPLIANCE

If a student has a disability that qualifies under the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and requires accommodations, he/she should contact the Office for Disability Accommodations (ODA) for information on appropriate policies and procedures. Disabilities covered by ADA may include learning, psychiatric, physical impairments, or chronic health disorders. Students should contact ODA if they are not certain whether a medical condition/disability qualifies. Box 8568; Telephone (601) 266-5024; TTY (601) 266-6837; Fax (601) 266-6035.


MAR 401/501 Spring, 2004
Biological Oceanography Lecture Outline

Lecture # Date Lecture Topic (Chapter Number)
1 1/13 Introduction to the Marine Environment; Adaptations; Types of Organisms, Food Webs, Food Chains, Microbial Loop (Ch. 2)
2 1/20 Physical/Chemical Environment: Light, Temperature, Salinity (Supplemental Reading)
3 1/27 Photosynthesis: Effects of Light and Temperature (Chs. 1 and 3)
4 2/3 Primary Production, Regional Production, Remote Sensing
(Chs. 9 and10)
5 2/10 Nutrient Uptake and Nutrient-Limited Growth (Ch. 3)
6 2/17 Midterm Exam I; Scientific Method and Some Basic Biometry
  2/24 Mardi Gras Holiday – No Class
7 3/2 *** New and Regenerated Production; Microbial Loop, Oceanic Food Web, Dissolved Organic Matter (Chs. 4 and 5)
8 3/9 Zooplankton Organisms; Grazing; Gelatinous Zooplankton Videos (Ch. 6) – Has your paper topic been approved yet? It must be approved by TODAY!
  3/16 Spring Break Holiday – No Class
9 3/23 *** Zooplankton continued (Chs. 7 and 8)
10 3/30 Distributions of Marine Organisms; Sampling Strategies, Equipment
11 4/6 *** Midterm Exam II;Estuaries, Benthic Environments and Organisms (Ch. 13)
12 4/13 The Deep Pelagic Environment (Ch. 11)
13 4/20 The Deep Benthos and Diversity, Hydrothermal
Vents and Cold Seeps (Chs. 12 and 14)
14 4/27 Term Paper Due. Fisheries Oceanography, Recruitment GLOBEC, Sustainable Yields (Ch. 15)
15 5/4 Ocean Ecology and Global Climate Change;Review (Ch.16)
  5/11 Final Exam (3 hours)

*** Note: We will meet in the Lab first on these days to set up that day’s experiments. Class will begin about 1 hour later (about 1330) on the indicated days.

 

Dept. of Marine Science | Academics | Course Offerings | MAR 401/501 Syllabus | Biological Oceanography

 

Last modified: July 28, 2005 3:35 PM | The University of Southern Mississippi | Comments & Questions
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