BSc (Hons)
Animal Behaviour and Welfare BSc (Hons)
Animal Behaviour and Welfare

Module Overview

This module covers some aspects about animal health and disease. In particular, diseases of a wide variety of different animals, and the impacts which they pose to the animals, and humans. This will also include some levels of disease treatments, and control, and discuss different methods of these. Functional animal nutrition of various species to prevent disease and maintain optimal health, as well as how diseases can affect behaviour will also be included.

Module Overview

This module explores the regulation and enforcement of animal protection including the background and need for legislation relating to animals, the scientific, political and legal procedures involved in forming legislation and how citizens may become involved in that process. Students develop critical analytical skills through the interpretation and application of legal frameworks as well as the evaluation of the research background underpinning the law. Students also learn to develop and present arguments used in decisions regarding animal protection

Module Overview

Data-centric skills are crucial for any life scientist undertaking any form of data collection, management, visualisation, and/or analysis. This module introduces students to skills in data storage, handling, and manipulation; understanding different data types; visualising data; fitting statistical and analytical models; interpreting and reporting statistical and analytical results; and using these skills in experimental designs. In the age of information, computational skills are becoming ever more relevant, and this module will hone different computational skills. All these skills can aid students in undertaking future research projects, including the third-year honours project.

Module Overview

This module provides a critical insight into the key biological principles of conservation and their application in a cross-disciplinary context. It will give an overview of the nature and complexity of threats to biodiversity across scales of biological organisation, and approaches to mitigating these. It will detail the methods used to assess risk of extinction / collapse in ecological systems, especially the key foci of management: populations, habitats, and ecosystems. It will highlight the challenges conservation faces in varied contexts: ecological, social, political, economic, historical.

Module Overview

The Evolution and Biodiversity module introduces the fundamental concepts that explain how the diversity of life on earth has evolved. The module opens with accounts of the historical development of evolutionary biology as a science, teaches the fundamental principles of evolution, from genes through individuals to communities, from micro- to macroevolution. It builds upon basic ecological principles of interacting individuals across a continuum from mutualism to parasitism, and how these interactions drive co-evolution and adaptation to environments, driving diversity and shaping communities of interacting organisms.

Module Overview

This module is an introduction to the key major taxonomic groups of invertebrates and vertebrates. Major invertebrate groups will include inter alia: sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, nematodes, annelids, molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms, and cephalochordates. All major vertebrate classes will be considered in detail.

Module Overview

The School believes that an option to study overseas is a valuable educational opportunity for our students. Provision of this option supports the educational aims of the School of Life Sciences and enhances the distinctiveness of its degrees at Lincoln. The optional year is intended to:

- enable students to benefit from studying within a cross cultural environment

- expose students to a wider academic and cultural experience

- enhance their future employment opportunities

- by increasing their cultural and professional mobility.

This module is optional for students within the School. Study Abroad is a year long module which enables students to spend a year studying abroad at one of the University's approved partner institutions. Eligible students must have completed their second year of study to a satisfactory standard and successfully completed the application process for the year abroad.

During the year spent abroad, students share classes with local students and study on a suite of locally-delivered taught modules which have been approved in advance by the University. Upon their return, as part of the assessment for this module, students are required to critically reflect upon their experience of living and studying in a different cultural environment and the skills acquired.

Module Overview

This module aims to help students understand theory, develop skills, build tacit knowledge and, importantly, integrate and apply knowledge and skills acquired from prior learning to novel situations. The module is built around the principle of scientific enquiry and the ownership of that process by students in order to develop practical, cognitive, and affective skills. Student ownership will be developed throughout the module, starting with guided activities that teach core identification and field study skills, and culminating in a student-led field study in which students conceive and design an experiment, collect and analyse data, and present the findings.

Module Overview

This module applies the principles underpinning the management of animal behaviour to a range of real world situations including companion animals, farm animals, animals involved in research and animals held in zoological collections. Particular emphasis is given to understanding the impact of alternative approaches to achieving desirable management outcomes and promoting animal welfare, involving a range of environmental and behavioural interventions. The module aims to equip students with knowledge and skills that will be valuable in post-graduate employment in animal based careers and other graduate outcomes as well as apply knowledge accrued during degree to current issues in animal sectors.

Module Overview

In this module, students undertake an independent programme of research under supervision from a member of staff. It provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate original and critical thought, as well as to build discipline-specific research and project-management skills. We currently offer projects in the laboratory (wet or animal) or field, projects that involve data analysis, literature research, educational research, science communication research, and market research. Students may work individually or in groups addressing similar questions, but must write up individually. The findings of the research will be written up and presented orally. The conduct and performance of the student as a research apprentice will be assessed.

Module Overview

Behavioural Ecology examines the way in which animals behavioural repertoires are shaped by ecological pressures and evolutionary forces, and how they contribute to survival and, ultimately, reproductive success (fitness). This module will therefore explore both how and in what way behaviours have evolved to maximise fitness, considering both short term adjustments and long term adaptations resulting from natural and sexual selection.

Module Overview

This module examines a range of interdisciplinary environmental management techniques that are used to address critical environmental, human and planetary health issues. Students will gain an understanding of the most appropriate techniques and solutions using a range of global, regional and local environmental case studies. There is a strong emphasis on practice-based skills with guest lectures from practitioners in the field, practical and seminar classes. An innovative assessment will give students the opportunity to be involved in actively influencing sustainable behaviour in the younger generation and giving them a chance to become the ‘teacher’. This approach is especially useful in the third year as it exposes students to a wide range of career options in environmental science management and policy/regulation.

Module Overview

This module provides students with the opportunity to investigate biological phenomena in the field at an overseas location. Students work in groups, guided by staff, to develop and test hypotheses allowing them to understand more about biological processes operating within the study area. They are encouraged to view the ecosystem within the wider context of the anthropogenic impacts being imposed on it.

Module Overview

This module examines the evolving relationships between humans and the natural world, challenging dominant narratives that separate nature and society by inviting students to explore the multiplicity of socio-natures and more-than-human perspectives. Throughout the module, students will engage with theories, methodologies, and case studies that introduce diverse and innovative approaches to understanding and researching nature-society interactions. The first half of the module emphasises more-than-human theories and methodologies, while the second half explores their real-world implications, examining the broader environmental, historical, and institutional frameworks that shape human perceptions of nature. By developing a nuanced view of complex, interwoven nature-society dynamics, the module will prepare students to engage critically with and thoughtfully address pressing environmental challenges whilst embracing multi-species practices and perspectives.

Module Overview

The impact of parasites to the health, welfare and productivity of animals remains one of the most important issues in veterinary biology. An understanding of the biology and epidemiology of parasites and the association they have with their hosts is vital in protecting and improving animal’s health and welfare. This module aims to provide a theoretical background for understanding the specialised features that parasites have developed to adapt to their host and transmit between hosts, the diseases which result and advances in treatment and prevention of infection. Students will also learn analytical laboratory methods for the identification of different types of ecto- and endoparasites. Case studies will be used to illustrate how the current advances in research are applied to understand and inform the epidemiology, control and prevention of parasite mediated disease in animals and monitor emergent diseases globally and within the UK.

Module Overview

This module covers some aspects about animal health and disease. In particular, diseases of a wide variety of different animals, and the impacts which they pose to the animals, and humans. This will also include some levels of disease treatments, and control, and discuss different methods of these. Functional animal nutrition of various species to prevent disease and maintain optimal health, as well as how diseases can affect behaviour will also be included.

Module Overview

This module explores the regulation and enforcement of animal protection including the background and need for legislation relating to animals, the scientific, political and legal procedures involved in forming legislation and how citizens may become involved in that process. Students develop critical analytical skills through the interpretation and application of legal frameworks as well as the evaluation of the research background underpinning the law. Students also learn to develop and present arguments used in decisions regarding animal protection

Module Overview

Data-centric skills are crucial for any life scientist undertaking any form of data collection, management, visualisation, and/or analysis. This module introduces students to skills in data storage, handling, and manipulation; understanding different data types; visualising data; fitting statistical and analytical models; interpreting and reporting statistical and analytical results; and using these skills in experimental designs. In the age of information, computational skills are becoming ever more relevant, and this module will hone different computational skills. All these skills can aid students in undertaking future research projects, including the third-year honours project.

Module Overview

This module provides a critical insight into the key biological principles of conservation and their application in a cross-disciplinary context. It will give an overview of the nature and complexity of threats to biodiversity across scales of biological organisation, and approaches to mitigating these. It will detail the methods used to assess risk of extinction / collapse in ecological systems, especially the key foci of management: populations, habitats, and ecosystems. It will highlight the challenges conservation faces in varied contexts: ecological, social, political, economic, historical.

Module Overview

This module introduces the fundamental concepts that explain how the diversity of life on earth has evolved. The module opens with accounts of the historical development of evolutionary biology as a science, teaches the fundamental principles of evolution, from genes through individuals to communities, from micro- to macroevolution. It builds upon basic ecological principles of interacting individuals across a continuum from mutualism to parasitism, and how these interactions drive co-evolution and adaptation to environments, driving diversity and shaping communities of interacting organisms.

Module Overview

This module is an introduction to the key major taxonomic groups of invertebrates and vertebrates. Major invertebrate groups will include inter alia: sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, nematodes, annelids, molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms, and cephalochordates. All major vertebrate classes will be considered in detail.

Module Overview

The School believes that an option to study overseas is a valuable educational opportunity for our students. Provision of this option supports the educational aims of the School of Life Sciences and enhances the distinctiveness of its degrees at Lincoln. The optional year is intended to:

- enable students to benefit from studying within a cross cultural environment;

- expose students to a wider academic and cultural experience;

- enhance their future employment opportunities;

- by increasing their cultural and professional mobility.

This module is optional for students within the School. Study Abroad is a year long module which enables students to spend a year studying abroad at one of the University's approved partner institutions. Eligible students must have completed their second year of study to a satisfactory standard and successfully completed the application process for the year abroad.

During the year spent abroad, students share classes with local students and study on a suite of locally-delivered taught modules which have been approved in advance by the University. Upon their return, as part of the assessment for this module, students are required to critically reflect upon their experience of living and studying in a different cultural environment and the skills acquired.

Module Overview

This module aims to help students understand theory, develop skills, build tacit knowledge and, importantly, integrate and apply knowledge and skills acquired from prior learning to novel situations. The module is built around the principle of scientific enquiry and the ownership of that process by students in order to develop practical, cognitive, and affective skills. Student ownership will be developed throughout the module, starting with guided activities that teach core identification and field study skills, and culminating in a student-led field study in which students conceive and design an experiment, collect and analyse data, and present the findings.

Module Overview

This module applies the principles underpinning the management of animal behaviour to a range of real world situations including companion animals, farm animals, animals involved in research and animals held in zoological collections. Particular emphasis is given to understanding the impact of alternative approaches to achieving desirable management outcomes and promoting animal welfare, involving a range of environmental and behavioural interventions. The module aims to equip students with knowledge and skills that will be valuable in postgraduate employment in animal based careers and other graduate outcomes as well as apply knowledge accrued during degree to current issues in animal sectors.

Module Overview

In this module, students undertake an independent programme of research under supervision from a member of staff. It provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate original and critical thought, as well as to build discipline-specific research and project-management skills. We currently offer projects in the laboratory (wet or animal) or field, projects that involve data analysis, literature research, educational research, science communication research, and market research. Students may work individually or in groups addressing similar questions, but must write up individually. The findings of the research will be written up and presented orally. The conduct and performance of the student as a research apprentice will be assessed.

Module Overview

Behavioural Ecology examines the way in which animals behavioural repertoires are shaped by ecological pressures and evolutionary forces, and how they contribute to survival and, ultimately, reproductive success (fitness). This module will therefore explore both how and in what way behaviours have evolved to maximise fitness, considering both short term adjustments and long term adaptations resulting from natural and sexual selection.

Module Overview

This module examines a range of interdisciplinary environmental management techniques that are used to address critical environmental, human and planetary health issues. Students will gain an understanding of the most appropriate techniques and solutions using a range of global, regional and local environmental case studies. There is a strong emphasis on practice-based skills with guest lectures from practitioners in the field, practical and seminar classes. An innovative assessment will give students the opportunity to be involved in actively influencing sustainable behaviour in the younger generation and giving them a chance to become the ‘teacher’. This approach is especially useful in the third year as it exposes students to a wide range of career options in environmental science management and policy/regulation.

Module Overview

This module provides students with the opportunity to investigate biological phenomena in the field at an overseas location. Students work in groups, guided by staff, to develop and test hypotheses allowing them to understand more about biological processes operating within the study area. They are encouraged to view the ecosystem within the wider context of the anthropogenic impacts being imposed on it.

Module Overview

This module examines the evolving relationships between humans and the natural world, challenging dominant narratives that separate nature and society by inviting students to explore the multiplicity of socio-natures and more-than-human perspectives. Throughout the module, students will engage with theories, methodologies, and case studies that introduce diverse and innovative approaches to understanding and researching nature-society interactions. The first half of the module emphasises more-than-human theories and methodologies, while the second half explores their real-world implications, examining the broader environmental, historical, and institutional frameworks that shape human perceptions of nature. By developing a nuanced view of complex, interwoven nature-society dynamics, the module will prepare students to engage critically with and thoughtfully address pressing environmental challenges whilst embracing multi-species practices and perspectives.

Module Overview

The impact of parasites to the health, welfare and productivity of animals remains one of the most important issues in veterinary biology. An understanding of the biology and epidemiology of parasites and the association they have with their hosts is vital in protecting and improving animal’s health and welfare. This module aims to provide a theoretical background for understanding the specialised features that parasites have developed to adapt to their host and transmit between hosts, the diseases which result and advances in treatment and prevention of infection. Students will also learn analytical laboratory methods for the identification of different types of ecto- and endoparasites. Case studies will be used to illustrate how the current advances in research are applied to understand and inform the epidemiology, control and prevention of parasite mediated disease in animals and monitor emergent diseases globally and within the UK.