ECTS
4 credits
Component
Faculty of Science
Description
One of the aims of this course is to synthesize notions and knowledge acquired in animal biology (anatomy, systematics) and ecology to describe and understand the morphology and evolution of vertebrate morphologies. In addition to present-day groups, this course will focus on extinct fossil groups, in particular their contribution to understanding the various eco-morphological adaptations (e.g. acquisition or return to aquatic life, acquisition of flight) that have marked the evolutionary history of clades.
This course also aims to provide a theoretical and practical grounding in phylogeny (cladistics) for tracing the evolution of a clade (distance, parsimony and likelihood methods), both for molecular and phenotypic traits (present-day and fossil).
Teaching hours
- Mammalian phylogeny - Practical workPractical work18h
- Phylogeny of mammals - TDTutorial15h
Necessary prerequisites
- HAV512H Diversity and evolution of past and present metazoans N3
Knowledge control
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test |
coefficient |
No. of hours |
Nb Sessions |
Organization (FDS or local) |
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Written |
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Continuous control |
1 |
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2 |
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TP |
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Oral |
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Further information
Manager(s) : Guillaume Guinot and Pierre-Olivier Antoine
Contact details of manager(s) (tel/mail) : guillaume.guinot @ umontpellier.fr @; pierre-olivier.antoine @ umontpellier.fr @
Target skills
- Know how knowledge is formed in different disciplines (hypotheses, experimental results, polemical results, mathematical theorems, scientific facts).
- Know how to search for and extract information critically, prioritize sources of information and identify their reliability, and produce a summary.
- Successful project management within a group
- Be able to develop a logical argument with a critical mind (limits, confrontation with the biblio, defense of a point of view)