BIOS 5460 - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution is an advanced undergraduate/graduate course designed to provide students with a rigorous exposure to molecular data analysis and literature review. In this course students will learn the principles behind DNA data analysis for evolutionary studies. This will include phylogenetic analyses and studies of molecular evolution. Phylogenetic studies will involve the acquisition of comparative DNA sequence data, sequence alignment, conceptual models of nucleotide substitution, and tree analysis using parsimony,distance, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods of tree inference. For the molecular evolution portion of the course, we will investigate selected examples illustrating the effects of natural selection of DNA sequences. This course is approved to cover the capstone requirement for the Biology and Biomedical Sciences majors.

Prerequisites & Corequisites: Prerequisite: BIOS 2500 or permission of instructor.

Credits: 3 hours

Notes: The prerequisites to 5000-level courses are: Junior/Senior standing and at least 12 credits in biology including the specific prerequisite for each course.
When Offered: Spring, alternate years