Evolutionary Biology (Life Sciences 3500) -- Spring 2009

Class meetings: Classroom Building 137, 9:35-10:50 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday
Syllabus: pdf version of syllabus
Professor: Alex Buerkle (email)
Teaching Assistant: Mark Lesser (email)

Readings

Textbook

Evolutionary Analysis (4th edition) by Scott Freeman and Jon C. Herron (ISBN: 0-1322-7584-8).
Note: if you are buying this book somewhere other than the bookstore, be sure to get the 4th edition.

From the primary literature

All links are to pdf files that are suitable for printing with Adobe Reader. Some of these links are to copyrighted material to which the university has a subscription. It is easiest to access these from a computer within the university network, where the direct links will work. Alternatively, if you are off-campus, you can navigate to the journal article through the university library (search).

  1. Bradshaw, H. D. and D. W. Schemske. 2003. Allele substitution at a flower colour locus produces a pollinator shift in monkeyflowers. Nature 426: 176–178.
  2. Hendry, A.P. et al. 2000. Rapid evolution of reproductive isolation in the wild: evidence from introduced salmon. Science 290: 516--518. (and correspondence that follows)
  3. Stolz, U. et al. 2003. Darwinian natural selection for orange bioluminescent color in a Jamaican click beetle. PNAS 100: 14955–14959.

Campus presentations

  • 8 April 2009 (Wednesday), 4:10 pm -- Doug Schemske -- Classroom Building 302
    Ecological genetics of adaptation in plant populations
  • 9 April 2009 (Thursday), 4:10 pm -- Doug Schemske -- Classroom Building 214
    Evolution in the tropics: Dobzhansky revisited
  • 15 April 2009 (Wednesday), 4 pm -- David McDonald -- Classroom Buildling 129
    Facebook for birds: social networks, smart, choosy females and the importance of reputation in a tropical bird (description, short video of manakins)

Sexual selection video clips

Below are a few links to video excerpts that are hosted on YouTube. You can find others by searching on "birds of paradise", "bowerbirds", etc. The videos are great, but I obviously can't be held responsible for the YouTube commentary (you're all adults, unlike some of the commenters).

General biology review materials