What determines an animal’s resistance to disease? Why do many female animals exhibit ‘mate choice’? How can we help animals cope in hostile environments? On this course you’ll you study the enormous variety of animal life on earth and discover the answers to these and many other searching questions.

We explore related aspects of animal biology, including animal behaviour, ecology, evolution, cell biology and physiology, as well as applied aspects of animal conservation and management.

Fieldwork will be an essential part of your training. In addition to fieldwork in Scotland, we run optional fieldtrips in Years 3 and 4. One course is currently situated in southern Europe (for example, recent trips have travelled to the French Cévennes Mountains, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, to the CERES Field Centre in Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina on the western Portuguese Atlantic coast). Another is based at Gabon’s Lopé National Park, in the heart of the western Congo Basin, where Stirling scientists have a long history of ecological and conservation management research.

As Scotland’s hub for conservation science, with close links to many animal conservation organisations, Stirling the ideal place to study biology.

From life science jobs to research and teaching, there’s a great deal of variation in jobs available to graduates with an Animal Biology degree:

• research scientist
• science writer
• medical writer
• biotechnologist
• higher education lecturer
• microbiologist
• nanotechnologist
• conservation
• pharmacologist
• secondary school teacher
• soil scientist
• statistician
• zoologist

Animal biologists work in the agricultural, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and in conservation management and environmental agencies. Other career paths include: forensic sciences, teaching, the food industry, commercial analytical laboratories and, with further study, professions allied to medicine, and in academic, government and industrial research laboratories.