Class and Lab Hours
Vertebrate Biology meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:50 am.
The laboratory associated with this course is optional and meets for 3 hours on Tuesday afternoon.
Vertebrate Biology meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:50 am.
The laboratory associated with this course is optional and meets for 3 hours on Tuesday afternoon.
We share this planet with a number of creatures - great and small. We know very little about most of them, yet our physical and emotional well-being depends on their lives and their survival. This course will review the little we do know about a small subset of Earth's living creatures - the vertebrates.
Vertebrate life is a complex byproduct of billions of years of evolution. Each organism and each individual is a unique synthesis of past and present, structure and function, nature and nurture. We will examine the history of vertebrates on this planet as well as the manner in which they currently survive. We will explore their internal and external shapes, their diversity and relationships, their habits and habitats. Learning about vertebrate life is an enormous task but not a difficult one if you work steadily and constantly. This course will help you do just that.
By the end of this course I expect you to have intelligent answers to the following questions:
Vertebrate Life (VL) is an exhaustive and exhausting review of the biology of vertebrates. The ~700 pages of the book contain more information on more topics related to the biology of vertebrates than any other text. It does not give a partial picture of the subject and is a reference book as much as a text. In other words, this book is not a novel. One cannot read it word for word, cover to cover, and expect to obtain a complete understanding of the material. Instead one must focus one's objectives and then use the text to meet them. One decides what one wants to know, examines the organization of the text to identify the appropriate portions to explore, then one studies those portions of the text that meet one's goals. The text (unlike a reference book) helps with this process by providing concluding and summary sections at the end of each chapter and short introductory transitions between major sections. Reading these brief overviews allows one to identify the purpose of the chapter or section within the book as a whole. In other words, these synthetic summaries put the vast amount of detail into the broader context of vertebrate biology. In addition, subject headings within a chapter provide an outline to the chapter as a whole.
| Week | Topic | VL Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| Overview/Review 600 MY: taxonomy & evolution | 1-3 | |
| 1-2 | classification basic structure early vertebrates |
1 2 3 |
| Aquatic Vertebrates and Amphibians | 4-10 | |
| 2-7 | living in water cartilaginous fishes bony fishes Paleozoic living on land tetrapod origins salamanders, anurans, and caecilians |
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
| Terrestrial Vertebrates | 11-25 | |
| 7 | synapsids and sauropsids | 11 |
| 7-9 | ectotherms: turtles tuatara, lizards, snakes ectothermy Mesozoic Mesozoic diapsids |
12 13 14 15 16 |
| 9-13 | Endotherms: birds mammal origins Cenozoic mammal characteristics mammalian specializations endothermy social behavior human origins conservation |
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 |
The course includes 3-4 take-home exams. Although each exam will cover approximately one-quarter of the text, some material, by its nature, will be cumulative. I do not give make-up exams. The course has no written final exam. An assortment of worksheets, presentations, quizzes, and essays will round out your work load.
The weekly assignments serve diverse goals individually and different parts of each assignment may have different academic goals. Some questions ask you to uncover facts, some to think about concepts, some to probe the literature, some to foster creativity, some to give you practice in a variety of reasoning and critical skills. Occasionally, the work may appear to be busy-work. This is not intended and I would like you to tell me if you think a particular question had no academic value and why you think so. If you do think a question is particularly unnecessary you can formulate a question of your own about that section of the course that you think does have academic merit. Thinking outside the box is definitely encouraged.
The weekly assignments use various pedagogical strategies. Some worksheets are in-class exercises which have no outside work associated with them. Some exercises are 5-10 minute, oral presentations. Most oral presentations will be on the biology of a particular taxon of vertebrates but the last oral report will will cover material reviewed for one of the library assignments.
Please see the Format for Written Work section for instructions on presentation.Occasionally I will allow you to redo an assignment. If you are allowed a second chance you must redo the entire assignment including any drawings. Please include a copy of the questions for the assignment. You must also hand in the original assignment with the redo, or I will not grade the revision. Redos are usually graded more stringently than original assignments.
The full text of all quizzes will be in the syllabus.
I encourage you to work with your classmates in studying for the quizzes, but when you take each quiz you must do so without assistance. We will also have time for discussion of the quiz questions before the quiz is administered. Don’t forget to think outside the box.
Quizzes may be retaken once for complete credit, subject to the following restrictions. Only one very low (under 51% correct) quiz may be redone for credit over the semester. This allows you to miss one quiz or assignment, due to illness or other unforeseen event, but prevents you from making a habit of it. Quizzes may be retaken only on scheduled Saturday mornings from 9-11 am in SR 205.
Take-home exams ask you to think about problems and questions in vertebrate biology. Each exam is given out in a Thursday class and will be due back the following Tuesday before class. Thus, you will have a weekend in which to complete the exam. You will be able to use any published material (not internet sources), and I expect a bibliography listing your sources appended to each exam. List your sources alphabetically and provide complete and consistent information. See Pechenik 1997 (on reserve) for format. You are not allowed to discuss the exam questions with anyone until after the due date. You may ask me for clarification of ambiguous questions. The exam questions will, in general, be similar to those on the worksheets. Please see the Format for Written Work section for instructions on presentation.
When I assess exams I will give 1-point deductions for the following: exam not proofed, inconsistent bibliography, no word counts, no copy of exam with paper, under 20 full-line answer when question asked for 200 words, genera and species names not italicized, scientific names of genera and above taxa not capitalized, not following format or directions, use of 'there' and 'it' as ambiguous subjects. I will deduct 3 points if the exam has no bibliography at all. I will give bonus points for exceptional answers, for originality, and for exceptional prose.
In lieu of writing the take-home section of any exam, you may write a 4-8 page paper (or equivalent) on an aspect of the biology of vertebrates which could have been covered in that section of the course. For example you could provide a dialogue between a cladist and an evolutionary systematist about vertebrate taxonomy, or explain the physiology of hot-blooded fishes, or discuss the social behavior of dinosaurs, or explore the functions of bird song. The easiest way to find a topic is to go to the library and examine the most recent copy of one of the journals listed below under 'library assignments'. Find an article which interests you and choose that for your endeavor. That article will cite other articles from the primary literature. Your paper must use at least 6 sources from the primary literature or equivalent, i.e. not books and not popular press articles (e.g., not from Discover, Science News, or Natural History).
Include either a thorough abstract or summary section in your paper as well as a concise one-page outline your essay. See also the Format for Written Work section of this syllabus.
If you are interested in this option I encourage you to use it for at least one of the exams. Please see me to discuss the format more clearly and to make sure that the topic you would like to explore is suitable. Be creative!
These assignments are designed to show you how material from the primary literature is incorporated into textbooks. See the Format for Written Work section for instructions on presentation.
Examples of libary assignments follow:
Most textbooks are descriptions of facts, theories, concepts, definitions, procedures that were first reported in scholarly articles and published in peer-reviewed journals. Textbooks may also describe historical changes in the discipline and the social context of the discipline. The translation from the original discovery of a piece of scientific information into a sentence in a textbook is a distillation and morphogenesis of that information. I want you to have experience with this process.
Examine the 'references' section of any chapter of "Vertebrate Life". Choose an article (longer than 10 pages) from one of the journals listed below (either in bold or not in bold) which is cited in the 'references' section and discussed the text. Read the article. The essay assignment has two parts
Part 1: write a one-page (500-550 words, single spaced) summary of the article. State the hypotheses of the article, the empirical or theoretical evidence for and against each hypothesis, the author’s conclusions, your opinion, and your reasoning behind your opinion.
Part 2: write a one-page (500-550 words, single spaced) comparison of the treatment of the information in the article as opposed to the text. Discuss similarities and differences in emphasis, content, style, presentation, organization, etc. Explain the differences. Provide a word count for each part and include a 'references' section to your essay giving a complete citation of the article as well as the section of "Vertebrate Life" in which the article is discussed.
|
American Midland Naturalist American Naturalist American Zoologist Animal Behaviour Arctic Australian Journal of Zoology Behaviour Bird Banding Brain, Behavior, and Evolution Canadian Journal of Zoology Condor Copeia |
Ecological Monographs Ecology Evolution Great Basin Naturalist Growth Herpetologica Journal of Field Ornithology Journal of Mammalogy Journal of Morphology Mammalia Physiological Zoology |
Textbooks are not the only books which transfer scientific information to the public. Another major category is the popular press. The popular press includes books written by scientists or other academics about scientific fields. These books are written without as much technical jargon and with fewer assumptions about what the audience already knows. Field guides are another category of books about vertebrates. These books are intended to help enthusiasts identify species of vertebrates in particular regions or countries. A third category is scholarly books. These tomes are written by scientists and review with greater detail characteristics of particular taxa or particular aspects of the biology of a smaller group of species. These books may also be symposia volumes which collect a number of papers written by multiple scientists about a given subject. Reviews of books about vertebrates are usually included in journals such as those listed in Library Assignment 1.
Go to the library and choose a book, published in the past 5 years, intended for adults (not children or young adults) about any aspect of vertebrate life or about any group or species of vertebrates but should not have humans as the primary focus. A hard copy of the book must be available in the science library [no e-books]. I have put a selection of suitable books (except field guides) on reserve in the science library [some of these books were published over 5 years ago but if the book is on reserve for this course you can use it]. You can choose a field guide, a natural history book, a manual, a symposium volume, a scholarly report, or any other book that is intended for adults, is published within the past 5 years, and could reasonably be expected to be reviewed by a scientist for one of the journals listed in Library Assignment 1. Once you have chosen your book, decide which of the journals listed in Library Assignment 1 might reasonably review that book. Go to that journal and photocopy 2 or 3 book reviews of other books that the journal has reviewed. Then write a review of the book that you choose following the format of the journal for which you copied the other reviews. Try to match the style and font as well as the content and organization. The length of your review should be the average of the reviews that you photocopied [provide a word count]. Include copies of book reviews from the journal you choose to mimic.
Read one chapter in R.T. Bakker's "The Dinosaur Heresies" (on reserve in the science library). Next read the comparable material in Vertebrate Life. [You may substitute a different book for this assignment but clear it with me before hand and include a copy of the chapter(s) you read with your dialog.
Write a (500-800 word) hypothetical dialog between Bakker and one of the Vertebrate Life authors. Types of dialogs include: conversations, phone calls, email exchange, face to face, interview, editorial exchange, debate, legal cross examination, dramatic plays, psychological analysis. Do not use text messaging.
The material in your hypothetical dialog should cover similarities and differences between the two sources regarding some combination of the following topics: content, context, attitude, audience, thesis, style. Issues you could cover include but are not restricted to the following: What is the context of each presentation? What is the audience for each? What is the thesis of each regarding the material? What are areas of agreement? Of disagreement? Why do the authors agree or disagree? What was each authors purpose in writing each account?
Include a 'literature cited' section which gives the complete citation of both the chapter(s) you chose and the relevant section of "Vertebrate Life".
From a recent (within the last 5 years) issue of one of the journals in bold listed for library essay 1, read an article (longer than 10 pages) that examines an aspect of the life of endotherms. Do not use the same journal you used for Library Assignment 1. Note that later in the semester you will give a 10-minute talk summarizing the research in the paper you read for this assignment.
This assignment has 3 parts. Part 1: write a one-page (500-550 words, single spaced) summary of the article, detailing the hypotheses as well as the empirical evidence, the author’s conclusions. Each paragraph must have a logical topic sentence.
Part 2: What is your opinion of the hypothesis, the methods, and the conclusion?
Part 3: find a section of "Vertebrate Life" which is appropriate to the topic of the paper you read. Read the section. Find the exact place where your paper would be included and include it. That is, rewrite the paragraph/section of "Vertebrate Life" which discusses the topic of your article so that it includes the material from the article you read. Make sure your inclusion is at least 6 sentences long. Indicate the page, column, and paragraph of "Vertebrate Life" where your text could be inserted as well as a full citation of your article in a 'bibliography' section of your essay. Don’t forget to use proper citation format for your article
Part of your grade on any exercise will reflect how well you have mastered the following requirements. I expect all your work to be presented professionally and organized logically. Provide titles for all written work and include your name and the date. For take-home exams, include a copy of the exam or the text of the questions.
IWhen appropriate, for essays, papers, answers to take-home exam questions, worksheets, and assignments you should state your thesis, define your terms, explain your perspective, provide examples in support of your ideas, and summarize your conclusions.
Say what you mean to say and say it clearly. Use correct spelling, appropriate punctuation, clear grammatical constructions, and succinct diction. Do not use place-keepers as subjects (eg. there are, it is, it can be shown that, etc). Instead make the true subject of the sentence the subject you use for the sentence. Proofread your paper. You will be graded on the fluidity of your composition as well as the subtlety of your comprehension. Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" (in the bookstore or http://www.bartleby.com/141/) is a brief, excellent guide to clear writing. Pechenik’s short guide to biological writing may also be helpful.
All essays, take-home exams, lab reports, exercises, etc are to be word-processed. Each should be single-spaced with a jagged right border (that is do not use proportional spacing or right justification) and the following margins: one-inch top and bottom margins and 1/2 to 3/4 inch side-margins. Use a 12-point font: Times-Roman or Ariel [or similar].
Scientific names should be properly presented. Underline or italicize genera and species. All names of genera begin with a capital letter, but species names do not. Taxonomic names for higher levels are never italicized and are not capitalized when used as adjectives (e.g. canid). However, they are capitalized when used as proper names (e.g. Canidae). The names of geologic time frames (e.g. Mesozoic, Eocene) must also be capitalized.
Do not plagiarize. Cite all sources within the text and give the last name of the author and the year of the publication (e.g. Pough et al., 2002). All figures must be properly cited. A complete bibliography (including internet sources, see next paragraph for additional information needed for internet sources) must be appended to each piece of work you hand in. Personal communications (including those from classmates, other individuals, or me) may be referred to as follows (e.g., Hayssen, pers comm). Citing your classmate is especially important when you work together in study groups.
The internet is not a consistently reliable venue for information. All information you obtain from the net must be verified from a published source before you use it in a professional context. Your work for this course counts as a professional context. Thus for every internet source you use you must provide a short statement explaining why you believe the exact information you got from this source is accurate. Do this in your bibliography.
Allow time to proof your paper before you print the final version. I reserve the right to take a full point off for each incorrectly spelt word, for each non-italicized genus or species, for each capitalization error on scientific names, and for each sentence with an ambiguous subject. Check all of the following when proofing your paper:
| TAXON | MYA | GEOLOGIC PERIOD |
|---|---|---|
|
Vertebrata Myxinoidea Petromyzontoidea Chondrichthyes Actinopterygii Sarcopterygii Tetrapoda Microsauria Temnospondyli Amniota Testudomorpha Lepidosauromorpha Archosauromorpha Synapsida |
525 335 320 420 420 390 375 320 330 320 220 255 255 270 |
late Cambrian early Carboniferous mid Carboniferous late Silurian late Silurian early Devonian late Devonian mid Carboniferous mid Carboniferous mid Carboniferous late Triassic late Permian late Permian early Permian |
Bakker, R. 1986. The Dinosaur Heresies. Kensington Pub Co. NY, NY. (Reserve Reading)
An entertaining synthesis of the most controversial theories about the biology of Mesozoic vertebrates. (You will need to read a chapter in this text for Library Assignment 2.)
Carroll, RL. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. WH Freeman, San Francisco, CA.
Hayssen, V. A Study Guide to Vertebrate Life. (Reserve Reading)
A sequential series of leading questions for each chapter of Pough, et al's third edition oft "Vertebrate Life'. The guide is more complete for earlier chapters than for later ones. (Take-home exam questions are often modifications of questions in this guide.)
Horner, JR & Dibb, E. 1997. Dinosaur lives. Harper Collins, NY.
Horner, JR & Gorman, J. 1995. Digging dinosaurs. Harper Collins, NY.
Janis, CM. 1995. Correlations between craniodental morphology and feeding behavior in ungulates: reciprocal illumination between living and fossil taxa. Pp 76-98, in Functional morphology in vertebrate paleontology (J.J. Thomason, ed). Cambridge University Press, UK.
Kent, G. C. & Miller, L. 1997. Comparative anatomy of the vertebrates, 8th ed. WCB McGraw-Hill Publishers.
Pechenik, JA. 1997. A short guide to writing about biology. Longman, Addison Wesley, NY. (Reserve Reading)
Pough, FH, Heiser, JB, & McFarland, WN. 1996. Vertebrate Life, 4th ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. (REQUIRED TEXT)
Radinsky, L. 1987. The Evolution of Vertebrate Design. Univ Chicago Press.
Written for a non-majors course in vertebrate morphology, Radinsky does not cover many important topics in physiology, behavior, ecology, and conservation. However, his discussion of topics in comparative anatomy are excellent as he has filtered out technical jargon and encyclopedic detail without losing the sophistication of the ideas or the precision of the arguments. (Reading this book before reading the similar chapter in "Vertebrate Life" will help you decide what information is important. This text was used as the laboratory text in 1990.)
Roest, Al. 1986. A Key-Guide to Mammal Skulls and Lower Jaws. Mad River Press. Eureka, CA.
A means for identification of mammalian crania.
Strunk, W, Jr, White, EB. 1979. The Elements of Style. Macmillan. NY, NY.
A classic guide to clean prose. Online Version
Wake, MH. 1979. Hyman's Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy. Univ Chicago Press.
An excellent classical site to the form, function, and history of vertebrate morphology.
Walker, WF, Jr & Liem, KF. 1994. Functional anatomy of the vertebrates, second edition. Saunders College Publishing, NY, NY.
Wolff, RG. 1991. Functional Chordate Anatomy. DC Heath & Co. Lexington, MA.
A readable review of vertebrate anatomy. Not as dense as Wake (1979). This text was used as the laboratory text in 1998.
Name 11 major anatomical systems and, using your texts and material on reserve or in the vert lab (Sabin Reed 205), describe the salient features of each anatomical system in hagfish, lamprey, and in the first vertebrates (the presumed ancestors to hagfish and lamprey). Note any gaps you find.
Summarize the major similarities and differences between the two groups for each anatomical system. For each organ system state whether the characteristics shared by hagfish and lamprey are synapomorphic (shared derived), symplesiomorphic (shared ancestral), or convergent (same trait but independently derived). For traits which differ between the two state if the trait is plesiomorphic (ancestral) or autapomorphic (unique). Make sure you can give your reasoning. Your text and the reserve readings will be helpful.
Based on your comparative morphological analysis do you think lamprey and hagfish should be lumped into one group (the traditional classification) or split into two groups (the contemporary phylogeny)? Explain the rational for your conclusion. Remember that plesiomorphic traits say little about relationships and synapomorphic traits are evidence for close relationships. Lots of autapomorphic traits suggests the taxon is really distinct from everything else but doesn't say much about to whom that group is related. Finally, having a bunch of plesiomorphic traits just says the critter hasn't changed much over time but again doesn't say much about to whom its related.
In class, you will be asked to report orally on your findings, on your conclusions from your findings, and on your rationale for your conclusions.
Prepare a 5-minute oral report detailing the following on the taxon you will be assigned in class. Make sure you understand and can define any term that you use. The typed, detailed (2-3 page) outline for your report must be handed in.
ostracoderms, acanthodians, placoderms, Elasmobranchii, Holocephali, Actinistia, Dipnoi, Polypteriformes, Acipenseriformes, Lepisosteiformes, Amiiformes, Osteoglossomorpha, Elopomorpha, Clupeomorpha, Ostariophysi, Scopelomorpha, Paracanthopterygii, Acanthopterygii
Similarities and differences with respect to emphasis
|
Acanthopterygii Acipenseriformes Actinopterygii Amiiformes Atherinomorpha Clupeomorpha Elopomorpha |
Esocidae Euteleostei Lepisosteiformes Neopterygii Ostariophysi Osteoglossomorpha |
Paracanthopterygii Percomorpha Polypteriformes Salmonidae Scopelomorpha Teleostei |
|
basibranchial basihyoid ceratohyoid ceratobranchial epibranchial |
foramen magnum hyomandibula optic pedicel orbit labial cartilage |
meckel's cartilage nasal capsule palatoquadrate pharyngobranchial rostrum |
|
auditory bulla external auditory meatus foramen magnum frontal infraorbital foramen jugal lacrimal mandibular fossa |
maxilla nasal occipital occipital condyle orbit palatal foramen palatine parietal |
postorbital process premaxilla pterygoid sagittal crest squamosal temporal fossa zygomatic process |
| angle | condyle | coronoid |
By achieving a thorough understanding of the text and classroom you can accumulate points. Those students who accumulate 95% or more points will get an A, 90-94.9% an A-, 87-89.9% a B+, 83-86.9% a B, 80-82.9% or more a B-, 77-79.9% a C+, 73-76.9% a C, 70-72.9% a C-, 65-69.9 a D+, 60-64.9 a D, 50-59.9 a D-, and below 50% an E.
Extensions - NONE
Extensions will only be granted for legitimate medical reasons or unforeseen emergencies. Unexcused late work will be docked 10 points per workday late. Work which is granted an extension will be docked 5% per day past the original due date. Please note that all exercises are due at the end of class and will be defined to be LATE as soon as class is over whereas Take Home Exams are due at the beginning of class and will be defined as LATE if they are not in the Science Center Office when I go to pick them up. If a piece of work is due on Thursday and you hand it in on Friday, you will be charged for 1 day late; if you hand it in on Monday you will be charged for 4 days late. I may not grade work handed in late until the end of the semester..
All accidents involving students that occur while in the Science Center or during related activities (field trips) must be reported to the Director of the Science Center on a student accident report form available in the Burton office.
