General Lab Syllabus

Schedule of Lab Times and TA information

Lab Coordinator: Dr. Andrea Aspbury Office SUPP 160

Lab Assignments:

LAB 1 (23 January)

INTRASPECIFIC PLANT COMPETITION and INTRO TO STATISTICS

• Lab 1 -In case you did not get the lab book
• NEXT WEEK:
• • Plant web protocol due: Plant Competition Web Protocol
    • copy the page and paste into your word processing program, then type in your answers
  • Questions on Statistics due (pages 19-20 in lab book)
  • Quiz 1
  • Summary and discussion of Miller 1995

LAB 2 (30 January)

TRANSMISSION GENETICS IN CORN

• NEXT WEEK:
  • Questions on Transmission Genetics due (pages 29-35)
  • Quiz 2

LAB 3 (6 February)

POPULATION GENETICS

• NEXT WEEK:
  • Questions on Population Genetics due (page 43)
  • Brown and Brown 1998 summary/discussion
  • Quiz 3
  • Genetic drift simulation: http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/simulations/jdk1.0/drift.html
  • Tongue rolling and PTC tasting chi-squre test:
    • You should compare the results from your lab session (we collected this together in lab) with the results from previous years' classes.
    • Pooled data: Pooled results from Fall 2002-Fall 2005 :  SEE BLACKBOARD
      • Remember to multiply your phenotypic frequencies with the total sample size of previous years data to get your new observed number for each phenotype.
      • Statistically compare the observed numbers.

• NEXT WEEK:
  • Questions on Natural Selection due (page 49)
  • Quiz 4

• Due today in class, after Statistics Lab: Natural Selection Graphs -- Statview is also available at the Microcomputer library (hours)
• NEXT WEEK:
  • Plant Competition Paper: Introduction and Materials & Methods sections due
    • Sample Paper -Female preference for big males
  • Quiz 5
  • Sumamry/Discussion Reilly et al. 2005

NEXT WEEK:
Phylogeny exercise due (page 80, 82, 83)
Behavior web protocol : Guppy Web Protocol
copy the page and paste in Word, then type your answers
Find and Read Dugatkin & Godin 1998. To find this article you must: (1) from the Texas State Library home page go to Locating Periodicals (under Databases); (2) Enter Scientific American; (3) click on the top link on the Search Result page: Scientific American (0036-8733) Academic Search Premier; (4) Search under Vol. 278, Issue 4 - Apr98, p.56 for the article entitled "How females choose their mates" ; (5) Then you can print or read it off the webpage
Quiz 6

• NEXT LAB (after Spring Break):
  • Presentation of Plant Intraspecific Competition Experiment
    • Plant Lab Results will be posted after all labs have collected data (GO TO BLACKBOARD)
• • All students must use the data from all labs
  • Report the mean, standard error, variance and sample size for each density and variable you choose
  • Conduct a t-test to determine significant difference between the high and low plant densities for the variables you choose.
  • You can compile the data to remove blanks (missing values in the datasheet) or Statview will automatically ignore them
  • Plant Lab pictures To download the picture just click on the picture and hold and you will get the option to save the picture.
  • Summary/Discussion Gabor 1999

NEXT WEEK:
Summary/Discussion Witte & Ryan 1998

• NEXT WEEK:
  • Nothing due in class

• NEXT WEEK:
  • Guppy Behavior Presentations due

NEXT WEEK
No Labs, but must turn in: Guppy Behavior Scientific Paper

Useful Web Pages:

• Evotutor Simulations: Genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, selection, sexual selection, speciation, statistics.....
• Deformed Amphibian Research - Scientific Method as examined by researchers
• Peppermoth evolution example- cool article from Science

Sample Paper:

• Female preference for big males - here is a good example of a paper from Danielle King. This topic is now off limits for class experiments.