Evolution (PCB 4674, Class #88018)
Date
|
Lecture
|
Course Part |
Text-book Chapter |
|
24
August |
- Organizational meeting - Video:What about God? |
I |
|
|
31
August |
I |
1 2 |
|
|
7
September |
Holiday No Class
(Labor Day) |
|
|
|
14
September |
I II |
3 5 |
|
|
21
September |
HOUR EXAM 1
|
|
|
|
28
September |
- Mutations and genetic
variation 2
- Mendelian genetics in
populations 1: Selection and mutation as mechanisms of
evolution
|
II |
5 6 |
|
5
October |
-
Mendelian
genetics in populations 2: Migration, genetic drift, -
Studying
adaptation: Evolutionary analysis of form and function |
II III |
7 10 |
|
12
October |
HOUR EXAM 2
|
|
|
|
19
October |
- Mechanisms of
speciation
-
Reconstructing
evolutionary trees -
Video: Great transformations |
III |
16 4 |
|
26
October |
-
Video: Why sex? - Sexual selection
|
III IV |
11 |
|
2
November |
HOUR EXAM 3 |
|
|
|
9
November |
-
Kin
selection and social behavior - Life history
characters
|
IV |
12 13 |
|
16
November |
-
The origins
of life and Precambrian evolution -
The Cambrian
explosion and beyond (Dr. Jandouwe Villinger) |
IV |
17 18 |
|
23
November |
-
Course evaluations |
1V |
20 |
|
30
November |
-
FINAL EXAM |
|
|
This
is a tentative class
schedule. Therefore material for exams will
be based only on lectures covered during the regular class hours prior to the
exam day. Dates of exam are subject to
change depending on how far the instructor goes with his lectures. All students are expected to be available to
take an exam or fulfill any class assignment during the regular class days
indicated in this syllabus.
Room: OE242, email: ortegaj@fiu.edu
Phone: (305) 348 2080 (FIU); 305 665
2844 x 3423 (
Office Hours: Fridays 10:00 pm
– 1:00 pm
Dr. Ortega is always available for students, however please contact him in
advance if you want to meet outside his office hours. You can reach Dr. Ortega
by email or phone. The day of the exam we will not answer questions concerning
the exam material. Any class issue can ONLY BE DISCUSSED between the
instructor and the student, no third parties from outside FIU such as
relatives, spouses, friends, class-mates, can be involved in any discussion
concerning any particular issue that the student might have during this
course. These issues include but are not
limited to grades, class performance, etc.
Teaching Assistant: Jose Alberte
Email: jalbe009@fiu.edu
Room number and office hours: OE296
Phone number: 305-348-3511
Office Hours: To be announced
Text
and lecture notes:
Evolutionary Analysis, 4th edition, by Scott Freeman &
Jon C. Herron, Prentice Hall. This text includes a web site (www.prenhall.com/freeman).
Lecture notes will be available in the “classpages” section of the website of
Department of Biological Sciences (http://www.fiu.edu/~biology). The instructor
will also show several videos on the main topics discussed during the
lectures. These videos will mostly be
shown in the second part of each class.
Course
requirement:
This course bridges the ecology (PCB 3043) and genetics (PCB 3513)
courses taken previously by upper division students. Students who enroll to PCB 4674 MUST HAVE PREVIOUSLY TAKEN AND SATISFACTORY
PASSED (C or higher grade) PCB 3043 and PCB 3513. These two courses are mandatory (see course
catalogues) and are required for all students who want to enroll in PCB 4674. Permit numbers will not be issued to
students who have not fulfilled these requirements.
Course
description:
The course is a survey of modern evolutionary theory, including
experimental and empirical evidence for evolution from a variety of scientific
disciplines. The course is divided into
four parts: Part I will introduce the students to the evidence of evolutionary
change and to natural selection as an agent of these changes; Part II will
explore the other mechanisms that cause change through time: mutation,
migration and genetic drift; Part III will explore adaptation in depth; Part IV
deals with the consequences of the four evolutionary processes over the sweep
of Earth’s history.
Help
sessions: Dr.
Javier F. Ortega will be available to help the students with any question on
the material of the course during his office hours. In addition, he will answer promptly any
question you might have by email. We
will not provide review sessions before the exams.
Schedule:
Class will begin at 2:00 pm. Please
be on time. Important announcements, etc. will be made at the beginning
of class, which you don’t want to miss.
Class
conduct and email list:
1.- We expect all students to behave as reasonable adults just like in any university classroom in any other school. It is important to have respect towards the instructor and fellow classmates.
Inconsiderate, disrespectful, dishonest, or disruptive behavior, as the instructor or your fellow classmates perceive it, or as is described in the Student Handbook, is unacceptable for adults in this course. The instructor reserve the right to ask you to leave or have you removed if such behavior is present. Such behavior may bring about official disciplinary procedures as outlined in the Student Handbook.
2.- Please turn off your cell phones and
beepers. Eating, and CHATTING are not
allowed during class sections. Students
are not allowed to bring pets, family members, friends, etc. during class
sections. We expect that students who
attend the lectures will take notes.
During lectures, students are not allowed to read notes/newspapers/books/magazines
or prepare home-work for other courses, such behavior is disruptive toward the
instructor and the rest of the students.
Students are welcome to interrupt the instructor any time that an idea of concept is not clear. Students who
are not officially registered for this course are not allowed to attend the
class lectures (see section 7 of this syllabus for students with an incomplete
grade).
3.-
Students are required to arrive
on time to class. We will NOT TAKE class attendance, and
coming to class IS NOT A REQUIREMENT
for this course. Student performance
will be evaluated ONLY by the
regular and final exams (see below details on exam policy).
4.- Students are required to send a registration
email with their email address to the Teaching
Asssistant before September 14th (by 5:00 PM). Students cannot
use their relatives' or friends' emails. They must use their own email accounts. Students who do not email
the Teaching Assistant before
September 14th will be penalized with a 3% drop of their grade of the first exam. Students who have not sent their email
address the day before the first exam (September 21st by 5:00 pm)
will have a 15% drop of their grade of the first exam. We will not make any exception. email the Teaching Assistant will reply all the
registration emails within a 24 hour period after the registration email has
been sent, students who do not receive an email back from the Teaching Assistant MUST contact him as
soon as possible. The subject of
the registration email must
say “EVOLUTION STUDENT: STUDENT LAST NAME”. The registration email must be
signed with the full name of the student and must include the student’s panther
ID number. We expect for students to
read their emails often (at least once per day) to check for any developing of
this course.
5.-
We expect all students to follow the directions outlined in this
syllabus, announced in class, and distributed via email or computer mailing
list, plus others. We are not
responsible for issues resulting from lack of knowledge due to students not
checking these resources. Also, not
having access to these resources is not an excuse--Email not working, internet
was down, biology web-site is not working, library web-site is not working, I
wasn't in class when an announcement was made, etc. ALL
the important announcements of this course will be made at the beginning of
class (first five minutes). There is a
chance that many class announcements
(including material for the exam) will NOT BE posted on the web-page of this
course and/or will not be sent by email. This syllabus and the class schedule are
subject to changes. Announcements made
in class will have priority,
therefore although class attendance will not have any direct effect on exam
grades it will help the student to be aware of any class development not
announced by email. Please be sure you
do not come late as that you don't want to miss any important
announcements. If we have extra time we
will teach two lectures on “Development and evolution” and “Molecular
evolution”.
6.- Students who have scholarships, or work
full/part time, or live far away, or are applying for jobs, or are in the army,
or have a busy family schedule, or are taking many courses, or are in their
last semester, or need to have an outstanding grade because future career plans
will be evaluated based on their class performance ONLY. All these
extra-course activities will not have any influence concerning their final
grade. Therefore, the instructor expects
that the students will not bring these extra-course activities when they want
to discuss with him class performance and/or expectations. An incomplete grade will be delivered under VERY EXCEPTIONAL documented
circumstances such as MAJOR sudden and unexpected serious
health problem of the student or his/her family, Dr. Ortega will not accept any
other excuse to provide an incomplete grade.
7.- Students with an incomplete grade
from a previous section of Evolution MUST
contact Dr. Ortega during the first week of the semester so that they may be
included in the list of students who are allowed to join the course
activities. Dr. Ortega will check with
the previous instructor of the student before allowing him/her to join the
course. These students can come to the
lectures. These students WILL NEED TO CONTACT Dr Ortega
the week of the final exam so that their final grade can be implemented.
Cheating
policy: I will follow strictly the “Student
Handbook” regarding cheating. Procedures
for both formal and informal procedures can be found under the section
“Academic Misconduct” in the “Conduct & Policies” chapter. Anyone caught
cheating will be asked to leave the class, will be given an “F” for the whole
course and a petition will be sent to Academic Affairs. I will go strictly by
the University’s policy on cheating.
Grades:
They will be based on the best 3 scores from the three hour exams (100 points
each), plus the final (100 points). In other words, your lowest score of the 3
hour exams and the final will be dropped. This policy is implemented in case a
student has a serious professional/personal conflict or emergency (i.e., job
interview, important family event, interview to join another academic program,
family emergency) the day of one of the four exams. Most of the questions of
the exams will be multiple-choice; however, they will also have several short
answer/essay questions. The final exam will be semi-comprehensive: I will focus
on material in the latter part of the semester (80%), but will feel free to ask
you questions which require concepts and information from throughout the rest of
the semester (20%).
Final grades will be as follows:
A =
286 – 300 points
A- = 270 – 285 points
B+ = 258 – 269 points
B = 249 – 257 points
B- = 240 – 248 points
C+ = 228 – 239 points
D = 180 – 209 points
F < 180 points
95% of the exams will be based
exclusively on the lecture notes posted in the web page of Department of
Biological Sciences (FIU), however 5% of the questions may come from any topic
not covered in the my lectures but found in the text-book chapters indicated in
the syllabus or in assigned reading material from recent research papers in
evolutionary biology. The instructor
will indicate in advance which sections of the book or reading material will
cover this 5% of the exam.
The
day of the exam:
Please bring two sharpened #2 pencils with erasers to all exams.
Students must bring a valid picture ID for their identification, valid picture
IDs are: driving license, FIU ID card, green-card, voter-registration card, or
passport. All other materials (including wallets, bags (any size),
cell-phones, bottles of waters/soda, etc.) will have to be placed at the front
or back of the class, so it is best not to carry anything to the room on exam
day. If you expect a phone call during the exam because any kind of emergency
it is your responsibility to arrange for somebody else to answer this
phone-call, as you will not be allowed to speak on the phone during the
exam. Each student will be assigned to a
particular seat by the instructor. You
must sign your exam. It will be turned
in to the instructor or assistant when you are finished. No one can leave
unless they have returned the exam. You are not allowed to write anything on
the exam except your name, FIU student number and a small circle to indicate
the answer that you have selected for each question. Each multiple-choice
question will have four choices, there is only one possible answer per
question. When you are finished, you
must return ALL materials
given to you during the test whether filled out or not. Talking is not allowed. Cheating will be
dealt with seriously and severely. Grades will be posted on the board located
outside Dr. Ortega's office OE242. Students can check their exams, but exams will not be given back to the students.
Students MUST check their
grades by themselves and not delegate in somebody else to check for them. All the students MUST check their grades as soon as they are posted. Students who are not officially registered in
this course will not be allowed to take the exam (see section 7 of this
syllabus for students with an incomplete grade). Students will be allowed to check their exams
during a two week period
after the grades of each exam are posted.
Students will have a second opportunity to check their exams after the
final grade of the course is officially posted.
The instructor understands that all students will check their final
grades (by themselves and not by somebody else) the week after final exams and
that they will immediately contact the instructor if they want to review their
class performance and final grade.
Students will have only one semester (Spring 2010) to claim for a change
of grade. The day of the exam we
strongly recommend the students to come to FIU on Monday morning long before
the time of the exam. Students must plan well in advance their fall schedule;
it is their responsibility to be sure that the day of the exam they will not
face any conflict with ANY
other extra-curriculum activity. The
instructor understands that when the student registers to this class he/she
does not have any major conflict that will not allow him/her to be in FIU at
least one hour before the beginning of the exam. The instructor also
understands that all the students who enroll for this course have read this
syllabus and understand and accept the course policy.
ARRIVING
LATE:
(Please read this carefully as we
will follow a VERY strict policy on this issue) If you arrive to an
exam more than 30 minutes late, or after the first person finishes the test
(whichever comes first) you will not be allowed to take the exam. We will not make any exception to this
rule.
MAKE-UPS:
There are no make-up exams for this course; if a student does not attend one
exam, then this exam will be dropped from the final grade (see grade section above). However, in the VERY REMOTE case that a student needs to have a make-up exam
then this exam will be oral.