Unit Synopsis
Applied Ecology is the science of understanding and managing natural living resources. Over-harvesting of exploited species, habitat loss, and the spread of invasive species are among the world’s most pressing environmental issues. Solutions to these problems are complex, but firmly embedded in the fundamental tenets of ecological knowledge and theory. This unit will provide you with a broad perspective of the field of applied ecology by working across different ecological levels (ecosystem, community, population and species) and issues, in the process you will explore how ecological knowledge and theory is applied to the management of natural living resources.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 2 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisites ZOOL11005 Foundation Animal Biology and BOTN11004 Foundation Plant Biology or BIOL11099 Living Systems and BIOL11100 Functional Biology or BIOL11102 and ENVR11014. Anti-requisite BIOL13031 - Ecology: Theory and Application Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Quiz(zes) | 40% |
| 2. Practical Assessment | 30% |
| 3. Practical Assessment | 30% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 9.09% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Self-reflection.
Students require additional support with data analysis and the capacity to extract meaning, and therefore reach informed conclusions/decisions.
Provide more scaffolding and support for students in the areas of data analysis and the role of data in decision making.
A dedicated data analysis session was incorporated into the 2025 residential school.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments Report.
Timetabling of the residential school in Week 10 does not allow students sufficient time to complete the assessment.
Consider reducing the magnitude of the residential school assessment.
The magnitude of residential school assessments was reduced in 2025,with some assessment elements being completed as face-to-face guided activities.
Source: SUTE Unit Comments Report.
Spreading assessment across multiple smaller low risk items is highly beneficial.
Continue to use a low-risk assessment strategy within the unit.
Continue to employ multiple low-risk assessments.
Source: Self-reflection
Explore alternative forms of assessment.
Introduce alternative forms of assessment beyond traditional quizzes/written report formats.
In Progress
Source: Self-reflection
Change and update residential school activities.
Update residential school activities to align with alternative forms of assessment that measure understanding through practical application and reflection.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Describe how ecological principles are applied to the protection, management, and restoration of terrestrial and aquatic living resources and ecosystems
- Discuss the elements, concepts, and theories of population and community structure and dynamics
- Apply integrated knowledge of population, community and ecosystem ecology to real world situations using industry standard methods
- Develop and utilise the skills necessary to undertake ecological fieldwork successfully and to analyse ecological data/models.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | ||
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | |
| 3 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • | |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | ||
| 5 - Team Work | • | • | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | • | ||||||||
| 2 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 3 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||