You will be required to formulate research questions based on your reading of the literature, design experimental or observational studies to test your hypotheses, and report on their findings in written and oral forms. Topics include the maintenance of genetic variation, population structure and speciation, molecular evolution, systematic methods, biogeography, and macroevolution. Offered in the Fall semester of odd-numbered years. Evolutionary Ecology Consideration of the evolution of ecological interactions. Topics include ecological genetics, levels of selection, adaptation, life history evolution, coevolution and the evolution of species diversity.
Labs emphasize quantitative analysis and include an independent project.
Offered in the Fall semester of even-numbered years. This seminar course will consider the history of ideas in the biological sciences. We will then examine developments of several particular fields by reading a contemporary history of that field alongside excerpts from important primary texts. Possible topics include embryogenesis and development, classical and population genetics, ecology, feminist critiques of biology, and social behavior and ethics. The study of biodiversity has historically been conducted within two disciplines, with community ecologists addressing the mechanisms that maintain diversity and evolutionary biologists addressing speciation and adaptation.