BIOC50: Macroevolution

Person Professor Weir Devin Bloom Role Instructor TA Contact BIOC50@hotmail.com TBA Office Hours Monday 5:00 to 5:30pm SW221 Tuesday 11:00 12:00am SW549 Tuesday 10:00 11:00am BV498

CONTACTING US E-mail sent to personal e-mail addresses of the instructor or the TA will NOT be answered. The course e-mail addresses must be used. E-mail will be checked once a week on Tuesdays at 1:00am.

COURSE EVENTS Lectures: SW 221 Monday 3:00 5:00pm Tutorials: BV 498 Tuesday 9:00 10:00 am (you may stay until 11:00 am, but tutorial assignments are due at 10:30am). COURSE OVERVIEW This course consists of two parts: 1) a lecture-based section covering the evolutionary history of life on Earth and the evolutionary processes that result in macroevolution and 2) a computer based tutorial providing basic understanding of how to generate phylogenetic trees from DNA and proteins and how to use those trees to address macroevolutionary questions. COURSE PREREQUISITS BIOB50 and BIOB51. All students are expected to have an understanding of basic evolutionary processes: adaptation, natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift. TEXTS AND READINGS Required Text: D.J. Futuyma. Evolution 2nd Ed. 2009. Sinauer Associates. (All required readings are from this text. For the history of life section of this course we will augment this text with suggested readings from the following two texts, both of which are on reserve at the library.) Suggested Text: R. Cowan. History of Life 4th ed. 2005. Blackwell Publishing (Lectures from Jan 17 to Feb 28 will use this text as a major source dealing with the history of life. Some information, in particular the phylogenetic trees, is out of date, so be sure to follow lectures closely. Additional Text: S. Freeman & JC Herron. Evolutionary Analysis, 4th Edition. 2007. Pearson/Benjamin Cummings. (Chapter 17 is the main source for the lectures on Jan 17 dealing with origin of life and Precambian evolution)

STUDY TOOLS Course Homepage: The homepage for this site is on the intranet: https://intranet.utsc.utoronto.ca/. On the homepage you will find all the information for the course including a copy of this syllabus, an outline of the course content, lecture slides, tutorial handouts, tutorial datasets and announcements. Lecture sides: Key lecture slides will be posted on the course homepage as PDF files the evening before lecture. These may be printed, brought to class and used to augment your note taking. You WILL still need to take notes, but printouts of lecture slides will mean that you do not have to write down everything during lecture. Attendance at lectures: There is no web option for this course. Looking over the lecture slides in combination with the required AND suggested reading materials should provide you with the information you need to know if you miss a lecture, but this will require more work than simply attending lectures.
Tutorials: These computer-based and provide practical skills for addressing macroevolution. They generally cover topics in the previous lecture. Attendance at tutorials is mandatory. Tutorial assignments are due at the end of each tutorial. If you miss a tutorial you cannot make up the missed assignment except with a valid doctors note. However, you can still go through the tutorial outside of class-time as all computer programs used during tutorial are freely available on the web. Tutorial materials will be

posted on Mondays before each tutorial by noon. You can access these electronically during tutorials so do not need to print them if you do not wish to. EVALUATION
Test Midterm Final Tutorial Assignments Tutorial open book exams Covers First 6 lecture days Last 6 lecture days 1 assignment each week 2 exams, each covering preceding 5 tutorial topics Proportion of Final grade 35% 35% 15% 15%

Exams: This course covers the evolution and diversification of life. As such there are a lot of taxonomic names you will be presented with in lecture. Names of taxonomic groups covered in lectures will be provided on a sheet in alphabetical order during both the midterm and the final exams. You should be familiar with the taxonomic groups covered but you do not need to memorize spelling. Also, the course will present a lot of phylogenetic trees. You will never be asked to drawn a phylogenetic tree from memory, but you may be asked to label the species at the tips of phylogenetic trees and know where along the trees, key evolutionary innovations occurred. Tutorial open book exams: These will ask you to apply the information learned in previous tutorial assignments to novel macroevolutionary questions. You will be given minimal instructions during the exam on the steps you needed to take, but the exam will be open book

meaning you can bring your textbook, another book, your own notes and previous tutorial assignments. You will not be permitted to communicate electronically or otherwise during tutorial exams. Doing so will be considered academic dishonesty and will be treated accordingly. Make-up exams: Students unable to attend a midterm or tutorial exam for religious reasons must notify the instructor by e-mail as soon as possible after the date of the exam is announced, in order to make alternate arrangements. Students unable to make a midterm or tutorial exam due to sickness must contact the instructor by e-mail within 3 working days of the test, must present the instructor with a valid doctors note and must complete a UTSC medical certificate (available via the registrars website) which confirms their illness, and medical attention at the time of the exam. Students who miss a final exam must petition to the registrar.

LECTURE TOPICS AND READINGS

Lecture Topic* Lecturetitle Classificationand 1 10Jan11 MT phylogeny 2 10Jan11 HL PatternsofEvolution 3 17Jan11 HL 4 17Jan11 HL 5 24Jan11 HL 6 24Jan11 HL Evolutiontowardslife Precambrianevolution Ediacaran,Cambrian andOrdovician Evolutionand diversificationofplants Date Requiredtextbook reading FutuymaChapter2 FutuymaChapter3 Futuymapg.7377, 102104 Futuymapg.104 107 Futuymapg.107 111 Futuymapg.112 118 Suggestedreading Cowenchapter1

7 31Jan11 HL

8 31Jan11 HL 9 7Feb11 HL

10

7Feb11 HL

11 14Feb11 HL

12 14Feb11 HL 13 28Feb11 HL

Freemanpg.660680 CowanChapter5; Freemanpg.694702 CowanChapter8 (plantsection) CowanChapter7 Futuymapg.80, (phylogenetictrees Evolutionofvertebrates 119121 outofdate) CowanChapters8 Evolutionand (landanimalsection), diversificationof Futuymapg.119 11 tetrapods 121 Marinemonstersofthe Futuymapg.119 CowanChapter14 mesozoic 121 (Marinepart) CowanChapter212, Evolutionofpterosaurs, Futuymapg.8084, 13(pterodactyle section) Dinosauriaandbirds 119121 Futuymapg.8488, Theoriginofmammals 121126 CowanChapter15 TheK/Textinctionevent andCenozoic Futuymapg.121 CowanChapter16, diversification 126 17,18 Evolutionofprimates Futuymapg.8891; CowanChapter19,20

andhumans 147150 IceagesandPleistocene Futuymapg.126 14 28Feb11 HL evolution 129 CowanChapter21 FutuymaChapter 15 7Mar11 MP Speciationpart1 17 FutuymaChapter 16 7Mar11 MP Speciationpart2 17/18 14Mar Speciationpart2/ FutuymaChapter 17 11 MP Coevolution 18/19 14Mar FutuymaChapter 18 11 MP Coevolution 19 21Mar Evolutionofgenesand FutuymaChapter 19 11 MP genomes 20 21Mar Evolutionof FutuymaChapter 20 11 MP development 21 28Mar FutuymaChapter 21 11 MP Macroevolution 22 28Mar Thegeographyof 22 11 MP evolution FutuymaChapter6 Theevolutionof 23 4Apr11 MP biodiversity FutuymaChapter7 24 4Apr11 MP TBA TBA * Lecture Topics: MT=Macroevolutionarytools, HL=TheHistoryofLife, MP=macroevolutionary processes