Sample Course Materials:
EEOB 400 Syllabus (Fall 2006)
Lecture 9: Sexual selection
Lecture 13: Phylogeny
Lecture 16: Coevolution |
EEOB 400: Evolution (The Ohio State University 2006)
EEOB 400 is a course designed for sophomores, juniors, and seniors that covers all aspects of biological evolution. The course begins by framing evolution
in its historical context and then emphasizing the importance of evolution not only to modern biology, but also to "real-world" problems in conservation, biomedical research, agriculture, fisheries management, and so forth. The first half of the course covers microevolutionary
mechanisms and the integration of Darwinian selection with population genetics. The second half of the course transitions to macroevolutionary patterns and discusses topics such as speciation, phylogeny, biogeography, coevolution, evolutionary development, the history of life, and human
evolution. Throughout the course, students read important essays and research articles and watch video interviews with evolutionary biologists that highlight their active research on concepts discussed in class. Lectures highlight current research so that students develop an awareness of
evolutionary biology as a dynamic field of ongoing research and exciting, unanswered questions.
BIO 102: General Biology (Rutgers University 1999-2002)
BIO 102 is the second semester of an introductory biology course designed for students majoring in the biological sciences or pharmacy, and for students
who intend to attend a professional school in the sciences. This course covers animal diversity, structure, function and development. An overriding theme in the course is to place these topics within the conceptual framework of ecology and evolution. |
| Undergraduate Research |
One of the most important parts of an education in science is the opportunity to conduct research in the field or lab. This section highlights some of the research projects conducted by undergraduate students with whom I have collaborated.
If you're a Dartmouth student and you want to become involved with a research project, please check out this
announcement for student research opportunities and
contact me! |
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Angela Leo
Angela conducted a George H. Cook senior honors thesis under the guidance of Henry John-Alder and myself at Rutgers. Among other things, Angela's experiments revealed that "male-specific" coloration (bright blue ventral patches) can be induced in female fence lizards when they are treated with exogenous testosterone! The image on the right shows a
female (following testosterone treatment) with blue ventral patches that are typically only present in males! Angela's study was a major
springboard for my future dissertation research, and the paper that we co-authored for Copeia can be found
here. |
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Viktoriya Zilberman
Vicky also conducted a George H. Cook senior honors thesis with Henry John-Alder and myself at Rutgers. Vicky and I manipulated testosterone levels in captive spiny lizards, Sceloporus jarrovii. At first, Vicky's results seemed disappointing: contrary to our predictions, we found no evidence
that testosterone influenced growth, despite the fact that males are much larger than females in this species. However, after replicating her study and comparing it with my own results from a wild population, we realized that our results provided strong evidence for environmental sensitivity of growth and sexual size dimorphism. Vicky's results were published in Functional Ecology, available
here. She also measured the effects of testosterone on coloration, available here from a recent article in Journal of Experimental Zoology. |
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Michele Barrett
Michele also conducted a George H. Cook senior honors thesis with Henry John-Alder and myself at Rutgers. Michele joined our group right after Vicky Zilberman and I discovered
that sexual differences in growth of spiny lizards were eliminated in captivity. Michele and I hypothesized that captive males and females grow at similar rates because ad libitum food availability overwhelms natural sexual differences in energy allocation strategies that
otherwise give rise to sexual dimorphism in the wild. Michele designed a clever study in which she manipulated the amount of food that lizards received and then compared the growth of males and females under each feeding treatment. Michele's results were recently published in the Canadian
Journal of Zoology and are available here. |
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Derek Stenquist
Derek wrote a grant proposal and received funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to conduct a study under the guidance of Ryan Calsbeek and myself at Dartmouth.
Derek manipulated testosterone levels in male anoles (Anolis sagrei) and then measured the effects of this steroid hormone on sprint speed, endurance, growth, immune function, and behavioral dominance. Among other results, Derek's data show that testosterone stimulates growth in this species, which he predicted because males are substantially larger than females. Derek has also extended his project by collaborating with Justin Henningsen at the University of Massachusetts to examine effects of testoserone on dewlap size and bite force. |
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Diane Cheney
Diane is interested in veterinary medicine and has been involved with the care and maintenance of our captive anole colony at Dartmouth for the past two years. Additionally, Diane is planning a research project
in the Bahamas in which she will investigate potential differences in immune function between reproductive females and females that have been ovariectomized to prevent reproduction. This project will dovetail with an ongoing research project that Ryan Calsbeek and I are conducting to investigate costs of reproduction, and it will also provide a nice comparison to Derek's studies of immune function in male anoles. |
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Samantha Haw
Sam joined Ryan Calsbeek's lab as part of Dartmouth's Women In Science Program
(WISP). Sam is using microsatellites to assign paternity to lizard progeny and to understand population
genetic structure of island lizard populations. Sam is also using molecular techniques to measure selection arising from variance in reproductive success among wild anoles.
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Zaneta Thayer
Although Zane is an anthropologist at heart, she joined our lab group to to assist with animal care in our captive anole colony. Zane has now moved on to Northwestern University, where she's beginning a Ph.D. in Anthropology. |
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Your name here
If you're a Dartmouth student and you want to become involved with a research project, please check out this
announcement for student research opportunities and
contact me! We currently have a captive breeding colony of more than 200 brown anoles from the Bahamas. Several students have already become involved in the daily care and feeding of these animals, and others are
planning their own research projects for the Fall 2008 and Winter 2009 quarters. |
| Education and Outreach |
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The Island School: Cape Eleuthera, Bahamas
In May of 2007, Ryan Calsbeek and I began a collaborative research/education project with
The Island School on Cape Eleuthera, Bahamas. The Island School is a "semester abroad" program for high school students from the US, Bahamas, and elsewhere. Under the guidance of scientists from the affiliated Cape Eleuthera Institute, a fully-equipped, on-campus research facility, students take courses in science and spend two days per week planning, executing, and analyzing
research projects on local marine and terrestrial ecology. We recently received funding from the National Science Foundation to involve Island School students with our anole research. The pictures on
the left show some of our interactions with students on our initial visit in May 2007.
The best part about collaborating with The Island School is their commitment to local education and outreach. Students help to educate Bahamian
middle school children about their local ecology and present their research projects at a Community Outreach Fair. At the end of the semester, students present formal slide shows of their projects at a
Research Symposium that is attended by local Bahamians, government officials, and scientists. Students also prepare written reports that are circulated to government officials, The College of the Bahamas, and various
science and conservation groups. |
