BIOL 470: Class project integrating phylogenies, evo-devo, and adaptation
Description
In this class, we’ve examined the research of many evolutionary biologists and met some of them virtually as guest lecturers. This project will give you the opportunity to be part of original evolutionary research by taking part in a distributed phylogenetic comparative analysis over the next 2+ weeks. In addition to weekly participation points, completing your portion of the project will be part of your Midterm Exam 3 grade. We will synthesize everyone’s results in class to test competing hypotheses.
Learning objectives
- synthesize data from the primary literature
- combine individual datasets into a comparative dataset
- construct phylogenies
- apply phylogenetic comparative methods to test hypotheses
Timeline:
Friday, April 3: Identify partner(s). You may work in teams of 2 or 3
- Fill out this Google Form with your and your partner(s) information.
- Complete by 11:59 PM HST for 1 participation point (Given the remote situation, I will give some leeway on this due date, but please do not delay and let me know if you are having trouble finding a partner.)
Wednesday, April 8: Enter data
- Link to video tutorial about data entry
- Complete by 11:59 PM HST for 1 participation point (it shouldn’t take you and your partner more than an hour, possibly much less)
Make phylogeny (this will part of Midterm Exam 3)
Run phylogenetic comparative methods (this will part of Midterm Exam 3)