Phylogeny of mammals

One of the goals of this course unit is to synthesize concepts and knowledge acquired in animal biology (anatomy, systematics) and ecology in order to describe and understand the morphology and evolution of vertebrate morphologies. In addition to covering current groups, this course will focus heavily on extinct fossil groups, particularly 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 theoretical and practical foundations in phylogenetics (cladistics) for tracing the evolution of a clade (distance, parsimony, and likelihood methods), based on both molecular and phenotypic characters (current and fossil).

- HAV512H Diversity and evolution of present and past metazoans N3

Responsible persons: Guillaume Guinot and Pierre-Olivier Antoine

Contact details of the person(s) in charge (phone/email): guillaume.guinot @ umontpellier.fr; pierre-olivier.antoine @ umontpellier.fr

- Understand the process of knowledge formation in different disciplines (hypotheses, experimental results, controversial findings, mathematical theorems, scientific facts)

- Know how to search for and extract information critically, prioritize information sources and identify their reliability, and synthesize them.

- Ability to successfully complete a project within a group

- Be able to develop a logical argument with a critical mind (limitations, comparison with the literature, defense of a point of view)