| | 1. | Examine the links pertaining to the Chordata at "The Tree of Life" website.
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| | 2. | Examine the links pertaining to the Hemichordata, Chordata, Cephalochordata and Urochordata in the "Phylogeny of Life Exhibit" in the Phylogeny Wing of the University of California Museum of Paleontology website.
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| | 2a. | Optional: Also, at this site you might wish to examine the links pertaining to the Deuterostomia (Deuterostomes).
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| | 2b. | Optional: Just for fun, you might wish to listen and learn the words to the "Amphioxus Song" courtesy of the Marine Biological Laboratory (a.k.a. Woods Hole).
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| | 2c. | Optional: Zimmer, C. 2000. In search of Vertebrate origins: Beyond brain and bone. Science 287: 1576. A review of [relatively] recent research on cephalochordates for clues to the origin of craniates. Copies available outside OE 244.
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| | 3. | Kardong (2002) Chapter 2: Origin of Chordates (pp. 47-80).
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| | 1. | Kardong (2002) Chapter 3: The Vertebrate Story; pp. 81-126.
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| | 2. | Examine the links pertaining to the Vertebrates (Craniates), Hagfish , Lamprey, Chondrichthyes, Actinopterygii, Sarcopterygii, Coelocanths, and Lungfish, in the "Phylogeny of Life Exhibit" in the Phylogeny Wing of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) website.
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| | 3. | Also examine the links pertaining to the Craniates, Hagfish (Hyperotreti), Vertebrates, Lamprey (Hyperoartia), and particularly the Gnathostomata at "The Tree of Life" website. Do not be confused by the unusual names used at this site. The author of this portion has derived new names for many of the traditional taxa to reflect their autapomorphic characters.
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| | 4. | Optional: A good deal of information pertaining to fossil "agnathans" (including conodonts) can be found at "The Tree of Life" using links from its Vertebrate page. For the earliest jawed organisms, theUCMP Phylogeny Exhibit has some information on the Placoderms.
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| | 5. | Check out the QuickTime movie at this site from Simon Fraser University illustrating the posture, locomotion, and most important, slime of the hagfish (slime hag).
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| | 6. | Optional: For even more information on hagfish you migh wish to visit your local un-virtual library and read the following article: Martini, FC (1998) Secrets of the Slime Hag. Sci. Am. 279: 70-75
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| | 7. | Optional: Suffer from elasmophobia? Allay your fears at the shark site at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
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| | 8. | For the Tetrapods, we'll examine the links at the "Phylogeny of Life Exhibit" in the Phylogeny Wing of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) website. Not surprising at a museum of paleontology, there are a large number of links pertaining to fossil taxa but time does not allow examination of these. Thus,
examine the following links pertaining to the extant (i.e., living) forms:
Tetrapods ,
Amphibians ,
Synapsids,
Mammals (including the
Monotremes,
Marsupials, and Placentals, both
part 1 and
part 2), the
Anapsids,
Testudines, Diapsids,
Sphenodonts, Archosaurs, and
Birds. Comparable sites can be found at "The Tree of Life."
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| | 9. | Optional: You may wish to examine the special exhibit on Vertebrate Flight at the UCMP.
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| | 10. | Finally, don't miss the "Flying Snake" website; it must be seen to be believed.
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| | 1. | Kardong (2002) Chapter 5: Life History (pp. 159-206).
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| | 2. | Gilbert (1996) Development and evolution within established Bauplanė. Copies available outside OE 244; also see assignment 4d below.
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| | 3. | EJ Kollar and C Fisher (1980) Tooth induction in chick epithelium: Expression of quiescent genes for enamel synthesis. Science 207: 993-995. (w/letter and reply). Copies available outside OE 244; also see assignment 4j below.
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| | 4. | Examine the following links pertaining to Chapter 22: Developmental mechanisms of evolutionary change at Scott Gilbert's Developmental Biology web site. Don't be intimidated by the number of links as most are vignettes, illustrating one of the many fascinating aspects of the field of evolutionary developmental biology, rather than in-depth examinations:
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| | a. | "Haeckel's Biogenetic Law" is examined in two links: Link 1 summarizes Haeckel's Biogenetic Law and examines its social aspects; Link 2 examines recent research suggesting Haeckel embellished his drawings to reinforce his theory of recaptiulation.
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| | b. | "The Reception of Karl Ernest von Baer's Law" examines the incorporation of von Baer's work by subsequent evolutionists. This page also contains a link to a short biography of von Baer (optional). Additional (optional) information about von Baer can be found at the "Home page of Karl Ernst von Baer."
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| | c. | "The emergence of embryos" explores developmental problems encountered in the evolutionary origin of multicellular organisms.
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| | d. | "Why so few phyla?" examines several hypotheses pertaining to this question including the concept of developmental constraints.
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| | e. | "Modularity as a principle of evolution." The importance of modularity / segmentation in the origin of new structures.
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| | f. | "Heterochrony in evolution." While not a craniate example, a nice example of the role of heterochrony (changes in developmental timing) in generating new morphologies.
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| | g. | "Correlated progression in domestic animalss" We've talked about this previously in our examination of mammalian diversity, but this is a nice summary of the coordinated suite of changes, possibly arising through heterochrony (specifically neotany), seen in domesticated mammals.
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| | h. | "Natural Selection and Development." A nice little essay demonstrating that though the target of natural selection is an adult morphology, the means of getting that adaptive phenotype involve changing the parameters of early development.
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| | i. | "Alternative proposals for evolutionary developmental biology." A brief examintion of two recent symbiogenic hypotheses concerning evolution and development. A little fringe, but what's the harm?
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| | j. | "Hen's Teeth" is an update on research pertaining to Kollar and Fisher's famous xenograft experiments.
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| | k. | "Eye formation: A conserved pathway." A nice illustration of how developmental pathways can simultaneously be evolutionarily conservative and divergent.
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| | l. | "The uses of apoptosis." An examination of the role of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in creating new morphologies.
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| | m. | "The fish Hox complex." A summary of the choromosomal structure of Hox genes in fish (and craniates) and how variability in this structure might relate to the tremendous diversity of teleost forms (which account for half of all known craniate species).
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| | n. | "Why do Mammals Have but Seven Cervical Vertebrate" examines the concept of developmental constraint within a molecular framework; interesting but unsatisfying.
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| | o. | "Dinosaurs and the origin of birds." The role of developmental biology in determining the avian / non-avian origin of dinosaurs.
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| | p. | "Conservation of sex determination genes." Identification of a common gene used in the diverse sex-determination mechanisms found in craniates (and non-craniates).
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 | | A good web resource for developmental biology is www.devbio.com. This is tied to Scott Gilbert's excellent text Developmental Biology, 6th ed., and several links pertaining to its Chapter 22: Developmental mechanisms of evolutionary change have already been examined.
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| | The November 2000 issue of American Zoologist contains papers from the symposium "Evolutionary Developmental Biology: Paradigm, Problems, and Prospects." This symposium inaugurated the new Division of Evolutionary Developmental Biology within the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (formerly the American Society of Zoologists). This journal can be found in the FIU Library (3rd floor; LOC # QL1 .A448) or borrowed, with appropriate deposit, from your instructor.
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| | Epigenetics has recently enjoyed a renaissance within developmental biology [along with an updated definition] as evidenced by the special issue of the journal Science devoted to epigenetics on 10 August 2001. Now defined as the study of heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the DNA sequence, the molecular basis of epigenesis is being explored. Processes such as DNA methylation, histone acetylation, and RNA interference, and their effects on gene activation and inactivation are being investigated. To learn more, visit the epigenetic section of the Science Functional Genomics Web site.
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| | Individuals interested in learning more about developmental biology might wish to enroll in PCB 4253 - Developmental Biology offered by Dr. Lidia Kos (who stubbornly refuses to create a web page).
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