The minor Animal Ecology and Health provides a broad, interdisciplinary understanding of how animals function, interact with their environments, and maintain health and wellbeing. It combines insights from ecology, physiology, microbiology, behaviour, and evolution to explore the complex factors that shape animal lives in both natural ecosystems and human-managed settings.

Students gain a strong biological foundation in how vertebrate form and function arise through development and evolution, and how these traits support adaptation to diverse habitats. Ecological principles such as population dynamics, resource use, competition, predation, and environmental stressors are used to understand how animals navigate their surroundings and what drives their survival and reproduction.

The minor also highlights internal determinants of health, including the essential role of microbiomes in digestion, immunity, metabolism, and behaviour. Students examine how microbial communities develop, how they influence host physiology, and how disturbances or antimicrobial resistance can lead to disease challenges within a One-Health perspective. Behavioural and hormonal mechanisms are integrated to explain how animals regulate homeostasis, cope with stress, reproduce, and engage in social interactions.

By linking ecological context with physiology and behaviour, and by fostering practical skills through laboratory and analytical work, the minor prepares students to evaluate animal health and welfare and to contribute to responsible management, research, and care across animal-related fields.

The minor consists of the following courses:

• Companion Animals (YAS32306)
• Microbiomes and Health (HMI20306)
• Zoology (Dutch) (EZO10306)
• Introduction to Animal Ecology (WEC21306)
• Behavioural Endocrinology (HAP21806)

This minor is of interest to students from BSc Toegepaste Biologie, BSc Biologie en Laboratoriumonderzoek, BSc Diermanagement programmes , and related programmes.

Students acquire knowledge about animal ecology and health from a number of disciplinary courses.

For more details, please see the course details for the separate courses, as linked in the description above.

This minor is of interest to students from BSc Toegepaste Biologie, BSc Biologie en Laboratoriumonderzoek, BSc Diermanagement programmes, and related programmes.  

Textbooks used in the courses are listed in de detailed course descriptions listed above.

In many cases e-book versions of textbooks are available for students, once enrolled, through the Wageningen University Library.

Courses in Wageingen are offered throughout the week Monday-Friday. 

Period 4 has 6 credits and runs for 4 weeks, with usually 1 course of 6 credits.
Peirod 5 and 6 both have 12 credits, run for 8 weeks and usually have one course in the morning and another in the afternoon. 

The detailed schedule of each course is published on TimeEdit, and linked from the course-links given above.  

The annual calendar can be found online.  

Each course has it's own set of assessment methods. This is outlined in the course description linked above.

Upon passing all courses of the minor, the minor is successfully completed.

Written tests of courses can be taken twice each academic year. Once when the course is attended, and once in a subsequent resit period. 
Details on when a written test of a course can be re-taken, are listed in the linked course-descriptions.    

You can address questions to education.animalsciences@wur.nl

This email address is of the programme Animal Sciences and can be used for questions about the entry requirements and content of the minor, as well as options about continuation master programmes in Wageningen.