BIOL 443 Syllabus - 1
Quantitative Approaches in Paleobiology, Morphology, and Systematics
BIOL 438 Autumn 2014
Instructors:
Greg Wilson gpwilson@uw.edu
Caroline Strömberg caestrom@uw.edu
Christian Sidor casidor@uw.edu
Laboratory: F 1:30-4:20 pm, JHN 122 Lecture: T Th 1:30-2:50 pm, JHN 122
Office Hours: By appointment
Website:
Text: Principles of Paleontology 3 rd Edition, M. Foote and A. Miller 2007
Resources: Life and Times of Washington State (2 nd floor Burke Museum), Geology Library
(Burke Museum 004), Paleontology Collections (Burke Museum 021)
Overview: This course is an introduction to the principles and analytical methods of paleobiology, morphology, and systematics. Lectures will provide a survey of the dominant lines of research in these fields. The major topics covered will include the nature of the fossil record, biodiversity curves, systematics and morphology-based phylogenetics, evolutionary rates and trends, analysis of form and function, and paleoecology. Lectures will be supplemented with a lab section with discussions that emphasize critical reading of the primary literature and laboratories that emphasize application of methods associated with lecture themes, using fossil and modern specimens from the Burke
Museum.
Pre-requisites: BIOL 354, ESS 213, BIOL 280, or permission of instructor
Course Requirements: For each of the ten lab sections, whether a lab or a discussion, students will have to submit a report that will be graded. Lab reports will be due by the following lecture. In addition there will be a take-home midterm and an in-class final exam that will cover theory and applications of methods as well as research and study design.
Grading: Lab reports
Midterm
Exam
TOTAL
10 @ 70 pts each 70 %
1 @ 125 pts
1 @ 175 pts
1000 pts
12.5%
17.5%
100 %
Late Work: Ten points will be deducted for late work and ten points for each additional day.
Make-up Work: A make-up final exam may be arranged for excused absences. It will not be the same as the regularly given exam. Excused absences include religious holidays, UW sponsored events, illness or injury of student or other family emergencies. Notify your instructors within 24 hours BEFORE or AFTER you are absent for the exam. You will need to give the instructors confirming information regarding the reason for your absence (e.g., note from physician, athletic coach, religious event). Oversleeping, a late bus, or failure to give us 24-hr notice before/after absence is not excused.

BIOL 443 Syllabus - 2
Labs are a critical component of this course. This cannot be overemphasized. They will be necessary both to understand the course material and to do well on the exams. Do not expect time in the lab for makeups; however, you are encouraged to do “make-up labs” by completing the lab using resources outside of class as the information covered on each lab will be on your exams. If you know that you will be missing multiple labs, please see the instructor as soon as possible.
Handouts/Readings: Please print off and read all handouts for lectures and labs before coming to class.
Please do the assigned readings. These will be either posted to the website or available on reserve at Allen
Library. Lectures are designed to complement not replace assigned material.
Academic Misconduct: Cheating and plagiarism are taken very seriously at the University of Washington. Cheating or sharing of information during exams as well as committing plagiarism on your weekly assignments or your paper is unacceptable behavior and will be punished in accordance with University guidelines. For more information read the University’s Student Code of Conduct
(http://www.washington.edu/students/handbook/conduct.html).
Disability Resources for Student: To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disability Resources for Students (DRS), 206-543-8924. If you have a letter from
DRS indicating that you require special academic accommodations, please present the letter to the instructor so that we can privately discuss the accommodations you might need in this class.
Class Schedule
MODULE 1: Taxonomic Analysis
Sep 25 Introduction, fossil preservation & the fossil record (Ch. 1)
26 Lab 1: Sampling biases, alpha-level taxonomy
30
Oct 02
03
07
09
10
Paleontological databases, species delimitation (Ch. 1, 8.2, 8.7)
Taxonomic diversity & rarefaction (Ch. 1, 8.1-8.5)
Lab 2: Richness & similarity indices
Diversity curves, extinction, origination, turnover (Ch. 8.6
Discussion: Diversity through time
Lab 3: Evolutionary rates
MODULE 2: Phylogenetic Analysis
14 Introduction to phylogeny
16 Tree building
17 Lab 4: Character coding
21
23
24
NO CLASS
Phylogeny applications
Lab 5: Character evolution
Handout take-home midterm exam
MODULE 3: Morphological Analysis
28
30
Introduction to morphology
Take-home midterm exam due before class
Traditional morphometrics & Geometric morphometrics 1

BIOL 443
31
Nov 04
06
07
11
13
14
Lab 6: Traditional morphometrics
Geometric morphometrics 2
Theoretical morphospace & functional morphology
Lab 7: Geometric morphometrics analysis
--Veterans Day--
Additional approaches to morphological analysis
Lab 8: Applications of geometric morphometrics
MODULE 4: Paleoecological Analysis
18 Introduction to paleoecology
20
21
Paleocommunities
Lab 9: Analysis of paleocommunities 1
25 Niche delimitation
27 --Thanksgiving--
28
Dec 02
--Thanksgiving--
Paleoenvironmental reconstruction
04
05
Discussion: Paleoecology case studies
Lab 10: Analysis of paleocommunities 2
12 Final Exam
Syllabus - 3