The general education, writing, foreign language, and diversity requirements for a degree in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences apply. All students take foundational courses in biological sciences, chemistry, math, statistics, and physics. Marine biology is the study of life in oceans and other saltwater environments. The marine biology emphasis focuses on the biology of marine organisms, their interactions with the environment, and the emergent properties of the ecosystems that arise from these interactions. The program addresses this field across multiple levels of organization, from the ecology of microbial populations and their role in the cycling of nutrients and energy in the ocean, through to the physiological and genetic mechanisms that enable marine organisms to adapt to the dynamic and often extreme environments in the ocean. The conditions in the oceans are also changing at an unprecedented rate because oceans play a critical role in climate change, absorbing much of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide and associated heat from global warming. The emphasis enables students to understand the biological effects that warming, ocean acidification and deoxygenation will have on marine biodiversity and the ecosystem services that the oceans provide the planet.