Spring Semester Program in Marine Biology

This intensive field and laboratory course introduces you to foundational concepts in marine ecology through hands-on investigation of the Bermuda marine system, from the intertidal to the open ocean. The course integrates lectures, ship-based sampling, intertidal and subtidal fieldwork, laboratory analyses, and data synthesis to connect physical structure, biogeochemical processes, and ecological interactions across diverse marine habitats. Module One focuses on biological oceanography, examining how physical structure and biogeochemical processes regulate primary production and nutrient cycling in the open ocean. Module Two explores energy flow and community interactions, emphasizing trophic linkages, life-history strategies, and benthic-pelagic coupling across coastal ecosystems. Module Three addresses disturbance, connectivity, and resilience, with attention to human impacts, conservation strategies, and the communication of ecological research. 

The aim of this course is to study the biology and ecology of tropical corals as well as exploring their response to environmental changes, including those driven by projected global climate scenarios. The course examines the biological, physical, biogeochemical, and evolutionary processes that determine reef growth, function, and resilience, spanning scales from individual organisms to entire reef systems. Topics include coral metabolism and physiology at cellular, organismal, and community levels; determinants of community structure and diversity, focusing on trophic dynamics and species interactions; and reef resilience and acclimatization to environmental change, with an emphasis on reproduction, recruitment, symbiosis, and evolution. Lectures will be complemented with field and laboratory exercises, where students will gain first-hand experience in coral reef research methods and health monitoring. Field activities include benthic surveys, water quality analysis, assessments of coral recruitment and recovery, bleaching and disease monitoring, fish ecology, and nocturnal reef observations. Laboratory experiments will focus on coral physiology, including symbiosis, metabolism, and environmental stress responses.

This course explores the diversity, biology and ecology of marine invertebrates. The comparative diversity of animal forms is investigated from a morphological and phylogenetic perspective through presentation of base concepts for each of the main invertebrate phyla. Course emphasis is on the morphology, development, physiology and life strategies of these invertebrates and their functional roles, interactions and adaptations within different ecosystems, with a particular focus on tropical and sub-tropical taxa. Lectures are complemented with hands-on laboratory exercises and field trips to a variety of easily accessible, tropical marine habitats including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, open ocean (planktonic) and rocky shores. Major environmental characteristics in the different habitats and the responses of the resident invertebrates will be examined and discussed, including anthropogenic threats and global climate change.