Diversity and evolution of present and past metazoans N1

The EU is interested in describing the morpho-anatomical characteristics of the major organizational plans of metazoans found in current and past faunas, as well as explaining their origin and the dynamics of their appearance. It is thus developing a vision of organisms based on paleontology and zoology. It will mainly address the origin of metazoans and the main divisions, namely diploblasts and triploblasts, as well as basic concepts relating to the positioning and phylogenetic relationships between taxa (mono- and paraphyly, evolutionary convergence, etc.). It is traditionally divided into lectures, tutorials that mainly aim to illustrate and support aspects related to the biodiversity of taxa, and practical work in sessions aimed at acquiring skills, particularly and necessarily in dissection.

- Understanding current and past biodiversity

- Know the major stages in the history of metazoans (appearance, organization, extinctions, diversification of the main groups);

- Know the taxonomy of the major groups of metazoans;

- Learn about interpretation and the principles and limitations of phylogenetic reconstructions; - Know how to use techniques for exploring organisms at the organism level, in particular how to prepare, observe, describe, quantify, and interpret specimen sections or whole specimens, and how to implement a dissection technique;

- Know how to represent information in an illustrated form, particularly in graphs, diagrams, and observational drawings in a lab report;

- Be able to identify and name the diagnostic anatomical characteristics of the main taxa from a specimen of a metazoan (complete or incomplete, living or fossil).

- Know how to use both formal and informal registers of written and spoken French, incorporating vocabulary specific to the description of metazoans in current and past contexts.

The practice of dissection is fundamental to illustrating and understanding many aspects of structure-function relationships, as well as to understanding differences/similarities between taxa through comparative approaches. Its practice is required in the EU. Failure to perform dissection during practical exams will result in a penalty in the grade for that exercise, as well as in any work requiring observations related to dissection (e.g., justification of an observation, completion of an observational drawing in a practical report).