An ongoing report on S366:Evolution

I've just started studying S366: Evolution as part of my Life Sciences degree with the Open University.Would an ongoing report of what I'm studying on the course be of interest to the board? As a case study in what real Evolutionary biology (even if only at undergraduate level) covers?Edited by Admin, : Modify title.

The Open University has their OpenLearn section which has lecture materials on a variety of subjects, but it doesn't include much from the evolution course, all I could find was Evolution: artificial selection and domestication which doesn't seem to directly relate to anything in my course materials.Obviously I have access to rather more material; equally obviously I can't freely post it here.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.

Ah, okay. I was going to create a seperate thread for the actual thing, as it were. This works just as well. Could you perhaps also rename the thread to simply An ongoing report on S366:Evolution?

BTW, since the course uses Futuyma's Evolution (1st edition, not 2nd) as it's core text. You could, in principle, pretty much follow along.(Futuyama pages 1-14, and box 3A on p48-49)Unsurprisingly, the first section of the course is a pretty gentle introduction, giving a historical perspective on the development of evolutionary theory for the most part. Here, we learn of Lamarck, and the essential differences between Darwin and Lamarck, and the near concurrent discoveries of evolution by Wallace and Darwin.Darwin's theory is described as being composed of five distinct parts:
evolution as such (i.e. species change over time), common descent, gradualism, populational change and natural selection.Futuyma then moves on to discuss what happened afterwards, with the general rejection of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution until the 1930s and 1940s when the modern synthesis emerged, and gives a detailed description of the views of the modern synthesis. And brushes through post-synthesis development, particularly molecular genetics, evo-devo and Kimura's neutral theory. It then moves on to discuss the philosophical implications of evolution, and the nature of evolution as fact and theory.Surprisingly to me, both the companion text and Futuyma launch into scathing attacks on creationism itself, dismissing it as wrong headed pseudoscience, whilst stressing that science has nothing to say on the existence of God per se.The companion text then guides a leap ahead of Futuyma to a summary of the evidence for evolution, given as eight points: the hierarchical organization of life, homology, embryological similarities, vestigial characters, convergence, suboptimal design, geographic distribution and intermediate forms.Finally, the section closes with a short video giving a broad overview of evolution, concentrating on homology (discussed in hippos and dolphins) and convergent evolution (illustrated by dolphins and penguins), and looking ahead to some of what will later be discussed in the course....Not a lot of meat here, really, but it's an introduction so I wasn't expecting that much. A clear description of the modern synthesis is probably the only part I wasn't particularly familiar with beforehand.

"[C]hange in the frequency distribution of alleles ..." is not mentioned explicitly, although the first of the "theories" ascribed to Darwin does mirror that. I've always been of the view it's a downright terrible definition of evolution so I'm not disappointed by that. As for changes with regard to the more modern elements - not in the introduction, although I suspect there's more on that later. Here there's just a few paragraphs summarising the existence of the various recent ideas (although, interestingly, punc eq doesn't even merit a mention).

The course looks at punc eq in about a month's time, I'm interested to see what it says, especially as I've long since acquired the view that Gould and Eldridge are basically wrong. Happy New Year, Kaichos Man.

Yeah, I've read Evolutionary Biology too, and Futuyma repeats the definition you give in Evolution.

Here, the OU course diverges from the pattern of Futuyma text book and gives a short introduction to the concept of adaptation which is not mentioned until later by Futuyma. Adaptation is not given a clear definition, but instead we're introduced to a case study looking at variation in reindeer subspecies and, especially, the difference between Svalbard and Norwegian reindeer. The text is backed by a half hour video. Issues discussed include herding behaviour, athletic ability, differences in digestion and fat storage, and modifications to the shape of the head.Also introduced is the concept of vestigial features, both physiological and behavioural, which are defined as "features, structures, biochemical pathways or behaviour[s] [which] are not currently adaptive ... although they may facilitate embryonic development". Examples are given of the canine teeth in reindeer which have only studs which do not even break the skin, and of stotting behaviour in Svalbard reindeer.Again, this is fairly introductory stuff, although some of the discussion of the benefits and trade of adaptive behaviours was quite detailed, nothing quantative was mentioned and there was no mention of genetics or any of the 'how' of adaptation. I'm presuming this will be covered later when we get to the section where Futuyma deals with it.Edited by Mr Jack, : Missed a closing "

I should perhaps point out that the course didn't officially start until this week, I just got an early start on some of it while I had a bit of free time. Being an OU course, progress will tend to vary like that. Also, the sections are not of equal length so expect a little variety on when the next updates arrive.

Section C is based around Futuyma chapter 2, although large sections of the text are replaced with an interactive computer exercise on manually creating phylogenic trees.This section started with a discussion of different classification systems, and what it means for a system to be a "natural classification". The concepts of a clades, mono-/para-/poly-phyletic groups and parsimony are introduced and the meaning of characters and character states. Then the means of generating phylogenetic trees from character data, or genetic data, are discussed. Initially, simple clear cut examples are considered but the course rapidly moves on to discussing the many problems of correctly deducing trees from the data and the various means by which the resulting trees can be scored and assessed.Finally, we were introduced to some software for generating the trees from phylogenic data: PARSimony, part of the PHYLIP package.

This section is based around chapter 3 of Futuyma. The comments, interestingly for those who claim macroevolution is not a term used by scientists begin "[Futuyma] Chapter 3 discusses macroevolutionary patterns".The section begins with an overview of evolutionary history and classification - no surprises here for anyone with a passing familiarity with modern evolutionary thought - brushes over mono, para and poly phyletic groups and then moves on to more in-depth material. First up is a discussion of the many forms of homoplasy* that occur and muddy the elucidation of phylogeny. It makes the salient point that a feature can be both homologous** and homoplasious, for example the wings of bats, birds and pterosaurs are homologous if considered as vertebrate forelimbs but homoplasious as wing structures. The biggest part of the section though concentrates on patterns in how characters change: individualisation (when previously uniform features such as leaves or legs differentiate), heterochrony (when changes in timing and rate of development produces different features) and heterotopy (when features become expressed in different parts of the body) are discussed but the biggest part of the section (including a lot of material in the course book) looks at allometry which is where different features of an organism grow at different rates.Finally, this section looks at adaptive radiation (described by Futuyma as the most common long term feature of evolutionary lineages) and finishes with a video investigating adaptive radiation in horses.* - homoplasy = features of similar form/function not arising from common ancestry.
** - homology = features of similar form/function arising from common ancestry.Edited by Mr Jack, : Garbled the title

So, er, I completely failed to keep up with this, many apologies, I took my exam for this course last week and my final exam today. I will endeavour to give a synopsis on it all in the next few days.