Study programme competencies |
Code
|
Study programme competences / results
|
A7 |
Reconstruír as relacións filogenéticas entre unidades operacionales e pór a proba hipóteses evolutivas. |
A12 |
Manipular material xenético, realizar análises xenéticas e levar a cabo asesoramento xenético. |
A18 |
Levar a cabo estudos de produción e mellora animal e vexetal. |
A21 |
Deseñar modelos de procesos biolóxicos. |
A24 |
Xestionar, conservar e restaurar poboacións e ecosistemas. |
A27 |
Dirixir, redactar e executar proxectos en Bioloxía. |
B1 |
Aprender a aprender. |
B2 |
Resolver problemas de forma efectiva. |
B3 |
Aplicar un pensamento crítico, lóxico e creativo. |
B4 |
Traballar de forma autónoma con iniciativa. |
B5 |
Traballar en colaboración. |
B6 |
Organizar e planificar o traballo. |
B7 |
Comunicarse de maneira efectiva nunha contorna de traballo. |
Learning aims |
Learning outcomes |
Study programme competences / results |
Capacity to interpret and to analyze the biological problems, as well as the human nature itself, from an evolutionary perspective |
A7 A12 A18 A21
|
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7
|
|
Choice of the techniques and methods more adequate to tackle the study of a specific evolutionary problem |
A7 A12 A18 A24
|
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7
|
|
Use of the genetic information to manage, to preserve and to restore populations. |
A7 A12 A18 A21 A24 A27
|
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7
|
|
Contents |
Topic |
Sub-topic |
OVERVIEW OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY |
Brief history of Evolutionary Biology. Population genetics. Molecular evolutionary genetics. Evolutionary biology of development (evo-devo). Evolutionary genomics. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases. Genome browsers (NCBI, UCSC, Ensembl). International projects to sample human genomes (IGSR, varsome) |
MACROEVOLUTION |
Evolution above the species level. Timeline of life on earth. The three domains of life. Using phylogenies to reconstruct the deep past. Diversification of eukaryotes. The species concept in paleontology. Patterns of macroevolution. Mass extinctions. Differences among clades in species diversity. The evolution of complex biological structures through the fossil record. |
THE BUILDING OF EVOLUTIONARY MODULES |
Promiscuous proteins; molecular machines; modular evolution of proteins. Evolutionary tinkering. Biochemical construction kits. Adaptations, exaptations and spandrels. Evolution of developmental programs: recycling networks. Retrograde and intercalary evolution. Gene duplications. Recruitment. Horizontal transmission. Linkage groups. Randomization effect of recombination. Genetic coadaptation. Supergenes. |
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENIES |
Cladograms and phylograms. Coalescence theory. Monophyletic, paraphyletic and polyphyletic taxa. Gene trees and species trees. Methods of molecular phylogenetics. The human evolutionary tree. |
THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES |
Concepts of species. Main questions related to speciation. Intrinsic reproductive barriers of isolation. Speciation and fitness landscapes: the shifting-balance theory. Modes of speciation. Adaptive radiations. Magic traits. Evolution of hybrid genetic incompatibilities. General rules of speciation and evolutionary diversification. Phyletic and cladistic evolution in the fossil record. |
QUANTITATIVE GENETICS |
Continuous, discontinuous and threshold characters. Breeding value and genotypic value of a genotype. Environmental value. Environmental sensitivity of a genotype. Components of phenotypic variance. Heritability. Estimation of the minimum number of loci underlying a quantitative trait (QTL). Mapping of QTLs. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS). |
CONSEQUENCES OF REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEMS AND TYPES OF MATING ON THE ORGANIZATION OF GENETIC VARIATION |
Maintenance of genetic variation in populations with sexual reproduction and random mating: Hardy-Weinberg law (H-W); deviations from H-W expectations. Effects of asexual reproduction and non-random mating on genotype frequencies: parthenogenesis; self-fertilization; inbreeding and relatedness coefficients; regular systems of inbreeding; phenotypic assortative mating. Genetic admixture. |
RANDOM GENETIC CHANGES IN POPULATIONS OF SMALL SIZE |
Sampling of gametes and random walk of gene frequencies. Wright-Fisher model. Dispersion of gene frequencies among subpopulations. Rate of fixation within subpopulations and genomes. Effective population size. Founder effects and population bottlenecks. Wahlund effect. |
MUTATION AND MIGRATION |
Classes of mutations: nucleotide substitutions; insertions and deletions; duplications; chromosome rearrangements. Mutation rates. Change in gene frequency due to mutation. The fate of a single mutant. Models of mutation in molecular population genetics. Migration and gene flow. Change in gene frequency due to migration; the island model. Mutation and migration in finite populations. |
EFFECTS OF NATURAL SELECTION ON PHENOTYPES AND GENE FREQUENCIES |
Natural selection. Biological fitness. Types of selection. Selection on quantitative traits. Measuring multivariate selection. Selection on correlated characters. Case study: the genetic basis of adaptation to high altitude in humans. Good genes or bad genes? Haploid and diploid basic models of selection. Polymorphisms maintained by constant selection coefficients. Fitness estimation. Fitness landscapes. |
POLYMORPHISMS MAINTAINED BY VARYING SELECTION COEFFICIENTS |
Spatial and temporal fitness variation: coarse-grained and fine-grained environments. Endocyclic selection. Trade-offs between fitness components. Antagonistic pleiotropy. Frequency-dependent selection. Cooperation, altruism and kin-selection. |
COMBINED ACTION OF SELECTION AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY FORCES. VARYING SELECTION COEFFICIENTS |
Mutation-selection balance. Genetic load of populations. The role of recombination: Muller's ratchet and the degeneration of Y chromosomes; Hill-Robertson effects. Evolution of sex chromosomes. Equilibrium between selection and gene flow; gene clines. Selection in finite populations: neutral, nearly-neutral and selected mutations. |
ENGINES OF EVOLUTION |
Red Queen dynamics. Interspecies antagonisms. Sexual conflicts. Sexual selection vs. natural selection. Parent-offspring conflicts. Intergenomic conflicts: cytoplasmic incompatibility. Intragenomic conflicts: selfish genetic elements. |
THE EVOLUTION OF SEX DETERMINATION |
What is meiotic sex? The costs and benefits of sex. The diversity of sexual cycles among eukaryotes. Molecular mechanisms of sex determination. Sex determination in angiosperms. Sex determination in animals. Self-incompatibility systems. Quantitative genetics of sex determination: genotypic versus environmental sex determination. Systems lacking differentiated sex chromosomes. Transitions among sex-determination systems. |
THE NEUTRAL THEORY OF MOLECULAR EVOLUTION. MOLECULAR FOOTPRINTS OF NATURAL SELECTION
|
The neutral theory of molecular evolution. Molecular clocks. Models of DNA evolution. Limits of nucleotide divergence. Estimates of the number of nucleotide substitutions. Substitution rates. Pseudogenes. Direct effects of selection on nucleotide polymorphism and divergence. The importance of recombination: selective sweep and background selection. Selection and demographic history can leave similar footprints on DNA variation. Statistical tests. |
Planning |
Methodologies / tests |
Competencies / Results |
Teaching hours (in-person & virtual) |
Student’s personal work hours |
Total hours |
Introductory activities |
B1 B4 B5 B6 |
1 |
0.5 |
1.5 |
Guest lecture / keynote speech |
A7 A12 A18 A24 A27 B1 B2 B3 B4 B6 |
21 |
52.5 |
73.5 |
ICT practicals |
A7 A21 B2 B4 |
14 |
14 |
28 |
Seminar |
A7 A12 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 |
7 |
24.5 |
31.5 |
Multiple-choice questions |
A7 A18 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 |
1 |
10 |
11 |
Objective test |
A7 A12 A18 A21 A24 B1 B2 |
3.5 |
0 |
3.5 |
|
Personalized attention |
|
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
(*)The information in the planning table is for guidance only and does not take into account the heterogeneity of the students. |
Methodologies |
Methodologies |
Description |
Introductory activities |
Teacher presents the teaching guide of the subject, clarifies doubts, and organises the students for the activities.
Student takes notes, formulates doubts and questions. |
Guest lecture / keynote speech |
Teacher explains the theoretical foundations of the subject.
Student observes, assimilates and takes notes, formulates doubts and questions, memorises, reads the recommended texts, and solves complementary exercises. |
ICT practicals |
Teacher presents the objectives, prepares the material and equipment, explains the methods, provides a script, assists the students, and carries out an assessment of the activity.
Student experiments with bioinformatics tools, analyses data and prepares a report. |
Seminar |
Teacher presents the topic from a historical perspective, distributes students into working groups, and carries out an assessment of the activity.
Student takes notes, reads the recommended texts, organises him/herself with the other members of the working group, prepares a presentation with slides, memorises, and makes an oral presentation of the assigned topic. |
Multiple-choice questions |
Multiple-choice tests to be carried out through the Moodle platform of the course.
Teacher asks questions and assesses the students' answers.
Student consults his/her support materials and answers the questions asynchronously. |
Objective test |
Corresponds to the official exam of the subject.
Teacher orepares a written test, with calculation exercises and multiple choice questions, and assesses students' answers.
Student answers the questions individually and synchronously, without external support of any kind. |
Personalized attention |
Methodologies
|
Seminar |
Guest lecture / keynote speech |
ICT practicals |
|
Description |
Every student will have 1 hour of obligatory tuition, with the objective of detecting possible dysfunctions of the teaching program and designing appropriate corrective actions. |
|
Assessment |
Methodologies
|
Competencies / Results |
Description
|
Qualification
|
Seminar |
A7 A12 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 |
Students will be presented with findings and hypotheses that in their day represented scientific revolutions in the knowledge of biological evolution, so that they can follow the course of subsequent research and assess their validity and impact today. The activity will take the form of a slide presentation, which must be presented and defended orally in front of the teaching staff and the rest of the students. |
15 |
Multiple-choice questions |
A7 A18 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 |
It consists of a series of multiple choice questionnaires on the Moodle platform, which must be answered on dates and at times set in advance throughout the course. |
25 |
ICT practicals |
A7 A21 B2 B4 |
Practical exercises of bioinformatics.
Compulsory: to avoid failing the subject, every student should obtain at least 15 points in this exam. |
25 |
Objective test |
A7 A12 A18 A21 A24 B1 B2 |
It is a written test, face-to-face and synchronous, which corresponds to the official exam of the subject. It consists of a series of calculation exercises and multiple choice test questions.
Compulsory: every student should obtain at least 21 points in this test to pass the subject. |
35 |
|
Assessment comments |
Official withdraw from the course is only possible if the student attends neither the final theoretical (objective test) nor the practical exam. In order to pass the subject, it will be necessary to achieve at least 50 points with the sum of the different evaluation methodologies, as long as the minimum mark required in the practical and the objective test has been achieved. The final grade of the students who did not reach the minimum mark to pass the course in the practical or the objective test, but whose cumulative score happened to be higher than 50, will be a 4.9 (FAILED). In the event that, for duly justified reasons, it is not possible to attend the official exam of the subject, an oral exam will be held, with a similar content to the written exam. If a student does not achieve the maximum possible scores in the continuous assessment activities, he/she may choose to take an additional block of questions in the final exam of the subject, on the understanding that he/she renounces the qualification he/she obtained before in the continuous assessment. The second opportunity will only be assessed by means of the practical exam and the objective test, using the same methodology as in the first opportunity. For the purposes of calculating the final grade, the marks obtained in the activities with continuous assessment (seminar and multiple-choice test) at the first opportunity will be maintained. For the computation of the final grade of students with recognition of part-time dedication and academic dispensation of attendance, both in the opportunity of the end of term and in the second opportunity, the grade obtained in the theoretical exam and the corresponding practical part (see above format of both exams) will be taken into account, representing 75% and 25% of the final grade, respectively. The fraudulent performance of the evaluation tests or activities will directly imply the grade of FAILED (0) in the corresponding call of the academic year, whether the commission of the fault occurs in the first opportunity or in the second one.
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Sources of information |
Basic
|
Cutter, A. D. (2019). A primer of molecular population genetics. OUP Oxford
Hartl, D. L. (2020). A primer of population genetics and genomics. OUP Oxford
Futuyma, D. J., and Kirkpatrick, M. (2017). Evolution. Sinauer Associates
Zimmer, C. and Emlen, D. (2015). Evolution: Making sense of life. Roberts and Company Publishers
Herron, J. D., and Freeman, S. (2014). Evolutionary Analysis. . Pearson
Caballero, A. (2017). Genética Cuantitativa. Síntesis
Hedrick, P.W. (2011). Genetics of Populations.. Jones & Bartlett
Hahn, M. W. (2018). Molecular Population Genetics. OUP USA
DeSalle, R. (2013). Phylogenomics: A primer. Routledge
Lane, N (2018). Power, Sex, Suicide. OUP Oxford
Beukeboom, L., and Perrin, N. (2014). The evolution of sex determination. OUP Oxford
Shubin, N. (2015). Tu pez interior. Capitán Swing |
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Complementary
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Sampedro, J. (2007). Deconstruyendo a Darwin: Los Enigmas de la Evolución a la Luz de la Nueva Genética.. Síntesis
Fontdevila, A., y Moya, A. (2003). Evolución. Origen, adaptación y divergencia de las especies.. Síntesis
Barton, N. (2007). Evolution. Cold Spring Harbor Lab. Press.
Ridley, M. (2004). Evolution. Blackwell
Avise, J. C. (2006). Evolutionary Pathways in Nature. A Phylogenetic Approach. . Cambridge Univ. Press.
Fontdevila, A., y Moya, A. (1999). Introducción a la genética de poblaciones. Síntesis
Bromham, L. (2008). Reading the Story in DNA: A Beginners Guide to Molecular Evolution. . Oxford Univ. Press.
Coyne, J. A. (2009). Why Evolution is True. Viking |
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Recommendations |
Subjects that it is recommended to have taken before |
Statistics/610G02005 | Genetics/610G02019 | Molecular Genetics/610G02020 |
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Subjects that are recommended to be taken simultaneously |
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Subjects that continue the syllabus |
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Other comments |
The contents of the syllabus and the support material for the study are in the Moodle platform of the UDC, so it is essential to connect to it, and pay attention to the news that both teachers and automatic servers will disseminate throughout the course. It is advisable to keep up to date with the material, attending classes, answering the questionnaires and solving the complementary exercises of the different topics. It is very helpful to understand written English, since most of the bibliography is in that language, and to know how to use EXCEL sheets at user level. |
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