Northern Arizona UniversityBIO 435C Evolutionary BiologyGENERAL INFORMATIONCollege: Arts and SciencesDepartment: Biological SciencesCourse: BIO 435 Evolutionary BiologyHours: 3 clock hours, 3 credit hoursInstructor:Office:Lab:Office Hours:TelephoneCOURSE PREREQUISITESBIO 340, or equivalent.SENIOR CAPSTONE EXPERIENCEThis course is a designated Senior Capstone course. As such, it can be used to fulfill the University Liberal Studies requirements. Senior capstone experiences must be designed to train students in two to four essentials skills and to evaluate learning outcomes by requiring students todemonstrate acquisition of those skills (creative thinking, critical reading, effective oral communication, effective writing, ethical reasoning, quantitative/spatial analysis, scientific inquiry, use of technology). Second, the capstone experience must require students to demonstrate an understanding of core concepts within the major, discipline, or program.Evolution informs, and is informed by, all other subdisciplines within biology. In this course you will be exposed to the entire spectrum of biological inquiry. No other single biology course is more integrative and more central to a unified understanding of biology. As such, it is an ideal capstone course. In this course, you will be required to call on knowledge gained in many other subdisciplines such as ecology, cell biology, comparative anatomy, genetics, and developmental biology. Furthermore, evolutionary theory has had profound effects outside of biology. In particular, it has revolutionized man's view of his place in nature. Evolutionary biology forces us to consider deep and fundamental questions about what it means to be human. You will be expected, through outside reading and through assigned writing exercises, to explore some aspect of this "extended realm" of evolutionary biology.In this course, it is expected that you will be trained and evaluated in critical reading/analysis, scientific inquiry, ethical reasoning, and effective writing. These skills will be emphasized through such means as book reports and term papers, readings and discussions of articles in the primary literature, oral presentations, and essay examinations. Also, a required -1-assignment of all students in the course will be to "write a cover statement for your learning portfolio in which you explain how the pieces in your portfolio link what you have learned in your major to what you have learned in your liberal studies program. In this statement you should discuss your strengths and describe your goals for your future development."-2-COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVESThe major course objective is to provide students in biology and related disciplines with an in-depth understanding of modern evolutionary biology. Evolution is the chief unifying principle in the biological sciences. The Darwinian idea of descent with modification under the influence of natural selection, together with more recent developments in evolutionary biology, have had a profound effect not only on the biological sciences but also on man's view of himself and of his relationship to the natural world. The evolutionary perspective spans the entire breadth of biology. Emphasis will be placed on helping students to integrate course material with their previously acquired knowledge and to think synthetically.This course is intended for undergraduates who have a substantial background in biology. The course is roughly divided into two broad sections: Phenotypic/Macro Evolution and Evolution at the Molecular Level. Students should leave the course with:(1) A thorough understanding of Darwinian evolutionary theory, including natural selection, adaptation and sexual selection;(2) An understanding of models of speciation;(3) An introduction to phylogenetic reconstruction, and the application of phylogenetics to the study of evolutionary processes;(4) An introduction to the study of macroevolutionary patterns (radiation and extinction), and evolutionary biogeography(5) An introduction to the contributions of quantitative and population genetics to the development of evolutionary theory, including "non-Darwinian" evolution;(6) An introduction to molecular evolution, including molecular clocks and evolution of multi-gene families.COURSE STRUCTURE/APPROACHClass meetings will consist of three hours of lecture per week by the instructor. Lectures will be based on textbook material, supplementary readings, or a combination of both. Accordingly, reading assignments may be from both the text and from material on reserve in the library. This is intended to be a reading, thinking, and writing intensive course (see Evaluation Methods below).TEXTBOOKSRequired:Darwin, Charles. 1859. The Origin of Species. (various editions and reprintings)Ridley, Mark. 1996. Evolution, 2e. Blackwell Scientific, Cambridge, MA, USA.OPTIONAL READINGS(Please note: this list was current at the time that Dr. Service last taught this course as BIO 371. -3-It will be updated to include more recent literature when the course is taught as BIO 435C in 2002-2003)Still in print (I think), available in paperback (?), and good readingBowler, P. 1984. Evolution: the History of an Idea, rev. ed. (1989). Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, CA. (pap. 14.95)Dawkins, Richard. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. W.W. Norton, NY. (pap. 7.95) Why evolution and adaptation are inevitable given the properties of living systemsFutuyma, D. J. 1982. Science on Trial: the Case For Evolution. Pantheon Books, NY. (pap. 10.36) A synopsis of evolutionary theory and a refutation of creationist argumentsGould, Stephen J. 1989. Wonderful Life: the Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (1990 ed.) W. W. Norton, NY (pap. 10.95) An interesting description of the process of reconstructing extinct forms, by one of the more controversial figures in evolutionary biologyJohanson, Donald, and Maitland Edey. 1981. Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (1988 ed). Warner Books, NY. (pap. 13.95) An entertaining account of the human side of "doing" paleoanthropology and an excellent description of the hominid fossil recordKitcher, Philip. 1982. Abusing science: the Case against Creationism. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. (pap. 9.95) The title says it allReader, John. 1988. Missing Links: the Hunt for Earliest Man, 2nd ed. Viking Penguin, N.Y. (pap.