Covers fish anatomy, physiology, sensory biology, reproduction and life history strategy, followed by population biology: growth, mortality, recruitment and the relationships among them.
The population material is deliberately placed inside a biology course rather than left to the fisheries sequence. Growth and mortality parameters are the inputs to every stock assessment ever run, and a student who learns them only as model parameters has missed where they come from and how badly they can be estimated.
Laboratory work covers identification of local species, ageing from otoliths and scales, and dissection. Students who intend to take AQUA 350 Fisheries Stock Assessment should take this course first.