Description

This 6 credit course for graduate and advanced undergraduate students will examine the amazing diversity of arthropods through lectures, discussions, and laboratory studies. Topics include: what generates and maintains insect biodiversity (physiological ecology, community ecology, population biology, evolution, speciation, behavior), identification of major arthropod groups (systematics, taxonomy, use of keys, how to make & curate a collection), and ways to measure biodiversity (sampling methods). Students will be assessed by lab quizzes, in-class discussions, written and oral exams and an independent project providing taxonomic depth in an arthropod group of the students choice.

Prerequisites

Introductory Biology Course; Recommended - Introductory Entomology Course

Topics Covered in Lecture

• Course Introduction
• Complexity and Design
• Forces of evolution
• Natural Selection and Adaptation
• Life history evolution
• Replicator theory and extended phenotypes
• Gene selection and kin selection
• Levels of selection
• Social evolution: Sex and mating
• Social evolution: Parental investment
• Social evolution: Cooperation and altruism
• Physiological ecology: size & scaling in small organisms
• Physiological ecology: habitats as templates
• Trophic relationships, food webs
• Species interactions: competition, predator/prey
• Species interactions: facilitation, mutualism, symbiosis
• Communities: niches, organization, development)
• Energy & nutrient flow, ecosystem function
• Biodiversity (diversity & stability, biogeography)

Topics Covered in Lab

• Speciation and species concepts
• Why conduct taxonomy?
• The history of taxonomy/systematics
• Basic concepts and tools of classification, how to delimit groups
• Practical aspects of taxonomy: Collection, curation, using keys etc.
• Basic principles of insect morphology
• Insects among animals (especially non-insect arthropods)
• Overview of insects (endo- exopterygotes, etc.)
• Overview of insect orders (after Borror et al.)
• Enthognathous hexapods and Apterygota
• Ephemeroptera and Odonata
• Grylloblatteria to Mantodea (including Mantophasmatodea)
• Blatteria and Isoptera
• Dermaptera to Phthiraptera
• Heteroptera (Hemiptera and Homoptera)
• Thysanoptera and Neuroptera (short segment)
• Coleoptera
• Strepsiptera to Siphonaptera (short segment)
• Diptera
• Trichoptera (short)
• Lepidoptera
• Hymenoptera
• Individual Collections - focus on specific group (taxonomically or ecologically defined)