SUBJECT: Should phylogenic surveys be a part of general biology?
DATE: 2/97
 
Labbers--- I need your quick input. We are currently working toward
conversion to the semester system. This has opened the opportunity to
evaluate and re-construct programs and courses. Many of us have felt and
have pushed for the inclusion of a 1 year gen bio class for all majors. Our
classical zoologists want an inclusion of a phylogentic survey, primarily
animals (30-60% of the second semester course). This survey would not
consist of concepts but of discription of phyla, classes, and orders with of
course some examples. I do not know enough about modern zoology to suggest
meaningful alternatives. I guess what I'm asking is.... What is the current
paradigm of zoology? What are the hot research topics? How/Where does
descriptive zoology "fit" into general biology? FYI General Zoology will
still exist. Nerves are frayed, tempers short, decisions pending.... Your
quick responses would be most appreciated. Feel free to contact me
privately if you wish.
 
Patricia (Pat) Hauslein, Ph.D.
Dept. of Biological Sciences
St Cloud State University
St Cloud, MN 56301

 

"Descriptive" zoology or the classification of animals is the foundation of
zoology just as classification in general is the foundation of biological
(and any) science. What is molecular biology but a classification of
molecules and their functions? The functional equivalent at the organismal
level is ecology.
 
How good would organic chemists or molecular biologists be if they knew all
about the kinds of reactions but nothing of the molecules themselves and
their categories?
 
It reminds me of the graduate student (in what was then a botany department
dedicated mainly to cell biology and the characterization of lipids) who lost
her research because she thought all spinach was the same. She took no
account of the different varieties she was buying from the grocery store
(there was, by some miracle, a plant taxonomist on her committee).
 
What often passes as pure physiology or ecology is actually a pinnacle
resting on a solid foundation of taxonomy and classification. How can we find
what is new unless we are well acquainted with what is old? Witness the
recent "rediscovery" of filament formation in Saccharomyces in Science.
 
It seems to me that classification is the first activity of the human
mind--as in the two taxa: *mother* and *not mother*. How can we count if we
have no classification?
 
How/Where does descriptive zoology "fit" into general biology? May I suggest
that you start with kingdoms, symbiosis, and traditional notions of
"protozoa" and see where it goes from there.
 
Sorry to ramble so. Just a few crumbs as food for thought.
 
Dave Williams
ProfDHW@aol.com
Science Division
Anne Arundel Community College
Arnold, MD 21012
 
 
Well said, Dave!!
 
But 40% of the only biology course a non-major will take may not leave
much for the functional relations like ecology and genetics.
 
Dave McNeely, Biology, University of Texas at Brownsville, 80 Fort
Brown, Brownsville, TX 78520; mcneely@utb1.utb.edu
 
 
 
Dave--couldn't agree more with your comments. Just one thing: how
about starting with Domains?
Cheers, AMH
 
Anne Morris Hooke, PhD 513-529-2028 (phone)
Professor 513-529-2431 (fax)
Department of Microbiology
Miami University AMH@MUOHIO.EDU
Oxford, OH 45056 AND AHOOKE@ASMUSA.ORG

 

Nothing wrong with Domains. I love Domains. Empires are nice too! Just don't
get your hopes up for universal acceptance any time soon.
 
Dave
 
 
I'm in the midst of a similar problem, only mine is completely in my head.
I appreciate the importance of taxonomy and systematics, but I can't figure
out how to teach the important part of it without spending too much of the
total course time on learning names of groups.
 
It's not enough that something be worthwhile; it has to be worth _more_
than the material that will _not_ get presented.
 
I would be greatly interested in lab or field exercises that provide
experience with classification without loading the student with minutia of
no value after the quiz.
 
I might mention that my current favorite way to expose students to the use
of a dichotomous key is Carolina's algae survey mixture. It comes with the
key for identifying the species in the mixture.
 
Lane
----
Lane Lester / llester@athens.net / Athens, Georgia USA
 
 
>I might mention that my current favorite way to expose students to the use
>of a dichotomous key is Carolina's algae survey mixture. It comes with the
>key for identifying the species in the mixture.
 
This is very useful. The Closterium specimens in this mix are also great for
demonstration of Brownian motion.
 
Try having students write their own key to a collection of household objects
as a take home assignment. I give them more and more credit each time they
resubmit it in a more perfect form. I include things like paper clips and
safety pins, knives and scissors, just to make it more difficult to
differentiate the items.
 
Dave Williams
ProfDHW@aol.com
Science Division
Anne Arundel Community College
Arnold, MD 21012
 
 
I agree that knowledge of diversity is important. Learning names and
characteristics of taxonomic groups is also important. The question is, in
what conceptual framework will this material be presented? A classic
approach would be to take each group, describe it, draw some specimens, and
memorize the info. My personal opinion is that, while this may be useful,
it makes the least use of the information. A more "modern", functional
approach would be to think about taxonomy in terms of, say, design. In our
introductory biology course, for example, students learn the major
invertebrate phyla within the framework of "solutions to design problems"
(mechanical support, transport, reproduction, etc.). I'm sure many others
use this approach also. In addition, we address general issues of taxonomy
and systematics in the laboratory by giving the students a set of live
echinoderms (everything but crinoids) and asking them to describe the
animals, choose dichotomous characters that they can enter into the program
MacClade, and construct phylogenetic trees using the program. They do this
without first knowing much about the animals themselves, so that they have
to confront issues like "what's a taxonomically reliable character?"
 
The general point is that students will forget the specifics. The lasting
thing we can do for our students is to teach them *ways* of looking at the
world and to give them models for assimilating new information once they
have left the classroom. But you probably all know that already.
 
Sara Hiebert
Biology Department
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-328-8053
 
 
Well said, Sara. But I do hope that we can help them to know more about
what kinds of organisms there are as well as helping them know how to
classify them and how they work.
 
Dave McNeely, Biology, University of Texas at Brownsville, 80 Fort
Brown, Brownsville, TX 78520; mcneely@utb1.utb.edu
 
 
Sara Hiebert wrote:
 
> (mechanical support, transport, reproduction, etc.). I'm sure many
> others use this approach also. In addition, we address general
> issues of taxonomy and systematics in the laboratory by giving the
> students a set of live echinoderms (everything but crinoids) and
> asking them to describe the animals, choose dichotomous characters
> that they can enter into the program MacClade, and construct
> phylogenetic trees using the program. They do this without first
> knowing much about the animals themselves, so that they have to
> confront issues like "what's a taxonomically reliable character?"
 
This is exactly the approach we use here, except that we give
different collections of "crittters" to each lab group and they
present their phylogenic tree and choice of taxonomic characters to
the rest of the lab. This works well and I can recommend MacClade as
a great piece of software.
 
Graham R. Kent
Dept. of Biology
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
 
 
Where can MacClade be obtained? What Mac hardware configuration is minimal
for running this program?
 
Thanks for your assistance.
 
Michael Gray
Biology Dept.
Bob Jones University
 
mgray@bjuprdev.bju.edu
 
 
When I obtained MacClade 3 years ago (vers 3.0), it cost $89 for an
individual copy and came with a comprehensive manual that was also an
excellent text on cladistics. It ran on any Mac (SE on up), but is
easier to use with a color monitor. The site license was reasonable
as I recall. The vendor is: Sinauer Associates Inc. Publ.,
Sunderland, MA 01375.
 
Graham R. Kent
Biology Dept.
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
 
 
 
I just finished renewing our site license for MacClade. We now use it it
three courses, 2-4th year level, and have been doing so for 4 years.
Site license is dependent on number of computers used. For example, we
use 25 and it cost us $525 for the first year. It costs about $100 this
year. Available from
Sinauer Associates
108 North Main Street
Sunderland MA 01375
FAX 413-665-7292
 
It is a great program and easy to use. It even works on our old MAC SEs
although we are limited to the printing program you can use with this. A
MAC LC II with Print Shop is the most you'd ever need.
 
 
Maggie Haag
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9
 
haag@odum.biology.ualberta.ca
 
 
 
To the List:
 
McClade is available as "freeware" on the BioQuest Library CD-ROM volume
IV. The version of McClade is listed as 2.1.
 
It comes with documentation.
 
Blystone in Texas
 
--------------------------------
Robert V. Blystone, Ph.D.
rblyston@trinity.edu
 
 

 

>Well said, Sara. But I do hope that we can help them to know more about
>what kinds of organisms there are as well as helping them know how to
>classify them and how they work.
 
I agree completely--in fact I have a personal fascination with knowing the
names of organisms, being able to identify them, and being able to recite
the characteristics of the taxa into which they fall. I also think that
simply sitting down and drawing a specimen is a wonderful laboratory
exercise in itself. I just wouldn't want to do all of that in the absence
of a broader conceptual framework that conceives of organisms as solutions
(in fascinating variety!) to common design problems.
 
As for the use of McClade, Graham Kent has pointed out another of the many
possible ways in which this tool can be used to good effect. By having
each group work on a *different* set of organisms, each group has to forge
its own way. By having each group work on the *same* organisms, you can
teach other concepts:
 
1) The characters you choose influence the form of the tree
2) It is possible to get identical trees from different sets of
characters, and identical trees with different treelengths
3) Absolute treelengths are difficult to compare if different sets of
characters are used
4) Using the same characters may result in different trees of equal
lengths. How do we decide which one is the "better" tree?
 
This is all a little disconcerting for freshmen, since they of course want
to know the "right" answer at the end of the lab. To answer this question,
we show them 5 different recently published trees to demonstrate that
systematics is a living, breathing field in which people continue to invest
intellectual energy (sometimes they even throw food, or stand up on chairs
and yell at each other).
 
Sara Hiebert
Biology Department
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-328-8053
 
 
We have eliminated most of our phylogenetic survey at the intro level, and
never approached the level of coverage of a single kingdom that your
zoologists would like. We do STRONGLY encourage our majors to take some
sort of elective taxonomy-based course to gain that aspect of biology (e.g.,
entomology, invert zoo, botany, etc.)
 
Devoting even 30% of an intro course to a march through the phyla in a two
semester course sounds seems a bit much these days.
 
I am of the opinion that the traditional survey ought to be an emphasis of
high school level biology.
 
 
Greg Anderson
Department of Biology
44 Campus Ave
Bates College
Lewiston, ME 04240
ganderso@abacus.bates.edu
(207)786-6110
 

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