BB525: Zoology and evolution (10 ECTS)

STADS: 04017001

Level
Bachelor course

Teaching period
The course begins in the autumn semester and continues in the spring semester.

Teacher responsible
Email: jcd@biology.sdu.dk

Additional teachers
onl@biology.sdu.dk
lasse@biology.sdu.dk

Timetable
Show entire timetable
Show personal time table for this course.

Prerequisites:
None.

Academic preconditions:
None

Course introduction
The aim of the course is:

1. to enable the student to have an overview of the history of life and the body plans and diversity of animals,
2. to enable the student to understand the principles of taxonomy and classification of the animal kingdom based on embryology, morphology and anatomy including molecular taxonomy (DNA sequencing)
3. to understand how and why animals adapt to the environment

which is important in regard to all further courses in the biology curriculum.

The course gives an academic basis for studying the topics in ecology, physiology, population biology and ecotoxicology (among others), which are part of the degree.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give competences in professional collaborations and structuring own learning
• Give skills in experimental investigations, scientific evaluation of biological theories, and evaluating and solving problems in biological science
• Give knowledge and reflection on the theory of biological science, experimental methods and laboratory safety, current research topics and their application to biology

Expected learning outcome
The learning objectives of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Classify animals according to current taxonomy
• Examine animal structure through dissection
• Describe defining characters for the main divisions of the animal kingdom
• Describe how life is formed by evolutionary principles
• Identify morphological and anatomical structures and histology and understand the importance of morphological characters in relation to function and adaptation to environment
• Use field keys to classify select animals to species and to state how systematical taxonomy is performed in praxis
• Know the main elements of the history of life, the body plans of phyla and the importance of metazoan embryology for taxonomy, and the phylogenetic system of metazoans (invertebrates and chordates)

Subject overview
The following main topics are contained in the course:

• The history of Life, from the origin of Earth to the emergence of the recent phyla and the evolutionary principles that has shaped life
• Animal phylogeny and taxonomy
• Systematics and evolution of main animal groups, their anatomy, morphology, histology, embryology, life cycle, physiology and ecology
• Taxonomic methodology: practical classification of select organism to the level of genera or species
• The history and theory of Zoological science.

Literature

• Lærebog: Hickman et al. (2014): Integrated Principles of Zoology, 16th ed. McGraw-Hill.
• Håndbog: Jespersen & Lützen (2012): Zoologisk Morfologi, Gyldendal.

Website
This course uses e-learn (blackboard).

Prerequisites for participating in the exam
None

Assessment and marking:

1. Mandatory weekly e-tests. Evaluated in January on a pass/fail basis, internal marking by teacher. (1 ECTS)
2. Mandatory laboratory work (participation). The exam takes place in January. Evaluated on a pass/fail basis, internal marking by teacher. (1 ECTS)
3. Written exam without exam aids, 3 hours. The exam takes place in January. Evaluated by the Danish 7-mark scale, external marking. (3 ECTS)
4. Mandatory weekly e-tests. Evaluated in June on a pass/fail basis, internal marking by teacher. (1 ECTS)
5. Mandatory laboratory work (participation). The exam takes place in June. Evaluated on a pass/fail basis, internal marking by teacher. (1 ECTS)
6. Written exam without exam aids, 3 hours. The exam takes place in June. Evaluated by the Danish 7-mark scale, external marking. (3 ECTS)

Reexam in the same exam period or immediately thereafter. The mode of exam at the reexamination may differ from the mode of exam at the ordinary exam.

Expected working hours
The teaching method is based on three phase model.
Intro phase: 30 hours
Skills training phase: 64 hours, hereof:
 - Laboratory exercises: 48 hours
 - Excursion: 16 hours

Educational activities Study phase: 10 hours
Educational form
The weekly lectures give an overview of the animal group of that week. Specimens of that group are investigated by the students in practicals aimed at giving practical skills in dissection, identification of structures and classification. In the study phase meetings the students discuss and teach each other the important features of the animal group of the week.

Language
This course is taught in Danish.

Course enrollment
See deadline of enrolment.

Tuition fees for single courses
See fees for single courses.