Genetics 453

Evolutionary Genetics

Winter, 2001

Instructors: Mary Kuhner and Peter Beerli

Time and location: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:30-12:20 HSB J-280

• Latest course news
• Description from the UW Course Catalog
• Syllabus of lectures
• Lecture Summaries
• Homework assignments
• Computer program: simul8 documentation and download
• Who is teaching the course? Mary Kuhner and Peter Beerli
• Why don't we have a textbook?
• What are some other related courses?
• What are some Internet resources on evolutionary biology?

• Office hours for Winter, 2001 are 1:30-2:30 Tuesday in K-121A Health Sciences.
• Preliminary Summary for Friday January 5 is up, and available in the summaries section.

GENET 453 Genetics of the Evolutionary Process (3) NW Felsenstein
Contributions of genetics to the understanding of evolution. Processes of mutation, selection, and random genetic events as they affect the genetic architecture of natural populations and the process of speciation. Emphasis on experimental data and observation, rather than mathematical theory. Prerequisite: either GENET 371 or GENET 372.
Instructor Course Description: Mary Kuhner and Peter Beerli

(We know it makes everyone insecure, but at the graduate level it is standard not to have a textbook. If you go to grad school you'll have to get used to it.) We are trying to compensate by handing out lecture summaries.

Biology 454 (Evolutionary Mechanisms)

The main evolution course at the University, taught yearly by Joel Kingsolver (Zoology Department) and Doug Schemske (Botany Department). Both are well-known researchers in evolutionary biology. Text in past has been Futuyma's "Evolutionary Biology" or Ridley's "Evolution". This year it is Freeman and Herron's "Evolutionary Analysis". What is the difference between Genetics 453 and Biology 454? Biology 454 is a fine course with a somewhat different emphasis. It is more oriented to covering issue such as evolutionary ecology, speciation, fossil record, and so on, while we spend more time than they do on genetic effects -- particularly molecular evolution, chromosome evolution, and population genetics. There is some substantial overlap. Winter quarter.

Zoology 414 (Molecular Evolution)

Molecular evolution course by Scott Edwards, who is an active researcher in that area. Texts last time were Li and Graur "Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution" and Avise "Molecular Markers". Winter quarter.

Genetics 562 (Population Genetics)

A course given every other year by Joe Felsenstein. This is a graduate theoretical evolutionary genetics course. Lots of equations, though mostly at a low mathematical level. No pictures of cute furry animals. Next time it's given will be Spring, 2001. Text: notes, sold inexpensively by ASUW Publications in the HUB.

Genetics 570 (Phylogenetic Inference)

This is a graduate-level course on evolutionary trees taught by Joe Felsenstein. Methods for inferring phylogenies, and methods for doing things with them. Some background in statistics necessary. It will be given every other Spring (next time is Spring 2002).

Others

There are more courses and we will gradually try to put descriptions of them here.

There are many:

Newsgroups

Some brief descriptions of some of the major ones covering evolution:

sci.bio.systematics

Discussion of systematics, including phylogeny and classification. Most postings are serious discussions by researchers. Some percentage of them are semantic issues or legalistic discussions of taxon names. There is often an endless thread about cladistic versus evolutionary-systematic approaches to classification.

bionet.molbio.evolution

Discussion among researchers about molecular evolution. Low volume, high quality. Co-moderated by Jerry Learn of our Micro Department.

sci.bio.paleontology

Tends to be filled with postings by fossil enthusiasts and tends to be dinosaur-centered. Some creation/evolution debating too.

bionet.population-biology

Supposed to be the forum for discussion by population biologists. But they don't post much there. Occasionally someone sees the "population" in the group title and starts a discussion of human overpopulation issues, which are best discussed elsewhere. This helps ensure that real population biologists will continue to avoid the group.

sci.bio.evolution

Moderated by Josh Hayes, formerly of our own Center for Quantitative Sciences, who should get some sort of award for putting up with a lot of nonsense. I think it was intended as a forum for discussion among researchers, but has tended to be filled with postings by others about whether humans are still evolving (answer: yes, but it's extremely slow compared to cultural change) and whether laughter is selectively advantageous. Not intended for evolution/creation debates: Josh screens these out.

talk.origins

The arena for endless debate between creationists and others, with frequent digressions into theology. Extremely high noise to signal ratio. When a decisive point is made, the opponent changes the subject or just refuses to respond.

World Wide Web Pages

• The amazing Tree of Life , a phylogeny of all life, in the making. A professional data base system of systematics, in effect.
• TreeBASE, a database of evolutionary trees (phylogenies) from the scientific literature. Mostly contains angiosperm plants now, and badly suffers from not being effectively updated.
• EP-GED the Evolution and Population-Genetics Educational Database, pages maintained by Patrick Phillips at the University of Texas at Arlington which have many links to people, departments, software, etc in evolutionary genetics.
• Joe Felsenstein's PHYLIP free package of computer programs for inferring phylogenies. Includes some web pages on all possible phylogeny programs and how to get them.
• Our own package LAMARC free package of computer programs for inferring population parameters, such as population size, population growth, recombination, and migration rates.
• The University of California Museum of Paleontology pages, which include a substantial evolution and phylogeny section. This is a sort of "virtual museum".
• Our own Burke Museum has a Vertebrate Paleontology Page that leads on to many images of vertebrate fossils.
• PB maintains a site about Water frogs with information about their phylogeny and ecology.
• Want some DNA or protein sequences? How about getting them from the international database? Try the Web pages of the databases at the NCBI, the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Library of Medicine, in Bethesda, Maryland. Not for the faint-hearted.
• The journal Systematic Biology is the major journal of systematics. These are the Web pages of the Society of Systematic Biology, which publishes the journal. Its pages include tables of contents with abstracts of many papers.
• The talk.origins Evolution FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).
• The Harvard Biopages evolution page, with lots of links to other evolution resources.