IYB at UCL: Investigating Spain’s ecology

The United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) ? a chance to celebrate and safeguard the diversity of life on Earth. Biodiversity embraces every every plant, animal and micro-organism, and sustains the ecosystems that provide us with food, fuel, health, wealth, and other vital services. UCL's wide-ranging research promotes a profound understanding of its importance and seeks new ways to preserve the richness of the natural world. In this short film, we follow undergraduate students on the Ecological Genetics course in southern Spain, as they investigate evolutionary biology in the field. Travelling to this region of the Costa de la Luz gives students a hands-on experience of studying a unique and varied ecosystem. The BSc in Environmental Biology focuses on the functioning of organisms, populations and communities and the environments in which they live, against a background of global climate change and human population growth. The programme is taught within the Faculty of Life Sciences.