Christine M. Janis, Professor
MAMMALIAN PALEBIOLOGY (esp. UNGULATES)
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1979

e-mail: Christine_Janis@brown.edu

BIOMED 188, 2003

COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY OF THE VERTEBRATES: COURSE INFORMATION

FACULTY:

Professor Dr. Christine Janis, BMC 207, X 3-2215
Office hours: Monday 10:30 - 11:30 am, Tuesday 11.00 am - 12.30 pm (or call me at home, 751-5924, for an alternative appointment), or email at christine_janis@brown.edu

Graduate TAs: Jose (ìPepeî) Iriate, Dan Warren.

Undergraduate Jamie Martin-McNaughton, Julie Rankin
TAs

TEXT BOOKS:

Essential: Course notes ($10.95).
Lab notes ($8.50)
W.F. Walker. Vertebrate Dissection ($60.00/$45.00 used).

Somewhat Liem et al., Functional Anatomy of the Vertebrates,
essential: an Evolutionary Perspective, 3rd ed. (2001). ($96.75/$72.50 used*).

Recommended: F. H. Pough et al. Vertebrate Life, 6th ed. (2001).
(for naturalists) ($100.00/$75.00 used)


A note about the textbooks: There has been a strong feeling in the past that, with the purchase of the course notes, the (expensive!) texts weren't really necessary. This could be true. Both Liem et al. and Pough et al. are on reserve at the Sciences Library, as are some other books on Comparative Anatomy (e.g., by Romer, Kardong, and Hildebrand). I recommend purchase of Vertebrate Life only if you are especially interested in vertebrate diversity, ecology, and evolution, as well as just anatomy.

LECTURES: The lecture notes (purchase essential) are available in bound format at the Brown Bookstore. You might think that having lecture "transcripts" means that you don't have to come to class: you might pause to wonder why, then, Ibother to turn up for the lectures myself.

DISCUSSION SECTION:

There will be a weekly discussion group on Wednesdays at (to be confirmed) 6.00 pm, in BMC 119, which will serve not only to answer "problems", but also to discuss issues arising from the course material. These are strictly optional, but you are encouraged to attend, especially as you will be required to write short essays in the exams that emphasize deductive reasoning.

LABS: The first week of classes (Jan 22nd) weíll be having an introductory lab
meeting (from 1.00 - 2.00 pm BMC 202) to watch a movie about embryonic development in an evolutionary context: The Odyssey of Life.

First full lab is on Wednesday, Jan 29th, in BMC 124 (down corridor next to BMC lecture room 119).
(Meet first for introductory session and movie in BMC 202).

1. Lab Manual: Do readings before lab (see lab notebook for readings for each lab, and further information).

2. Movies: There will be movies from David Attenborough's Life on Earth)
shown before the labs on vertebrate diversity (labs 1, 5, and 8).
These will start at 1.00 pm in BMC 202 or BMC 291 (see schedule).
Lab 11 will be preceded by a computer video demo on locomotion that weíll
hold in the lab room itself (no other room available!)
Note also that there will be a lab lecture on March 12th (before Lab #6) and April 2nd (before lab #8) in BMC 202.

3. Lab Equipment: We will be providing you with the lab coats and dissection kits (one per pair of students): you will be responsible for the condition of the items in the kit --- make sure to wash and dry them carefully after each lab. Scalpel blades, safety glasses and disposable
gloves will also be available.

4. Entrance to BMC 124 and its corridor. Our lab room is used exclusively by Bio 188 students this semester: the doors can be opened by a key punch code (changes each semester, to be given out on the first day of lab). You may use the room at any time between 8.00 am and 5.00 pm to catch up, review, etc. The building is not officially open on weekends, evenings, and holidays, and keys to the front door will not be given out.

5. Partners: Students work at tables of four, mainly dissecting in pairs but sometimes doing things as a table. Choose your partner(s) carefully; you will be working with them many hours this semester.

Lab tables are often good starting places for forming study groups: I recommend all of you to form such groups for discussion and revision of course material.

6. General Lab Etiquette and Information: Be sure to come to lab (or movie room) promptly at 1.00 pm. People who normally wear contact lens may prefer to wear glasses in lab in case of irritation from the formalin preservative. Also, people with long hair should tie it back and/or clip it off the face (or risk formalin-dipped split ends).

You are responsible for storing your specimen after dissection in such a manner that it does not dry out before next week's lab (the TAs will show you how), and for cleaning up your lab space after your finish the lab.
COURSE READING:

In previous years Iíve given particular pages of reading from the text book(s) to go along with each lecture. Iím declining to do so this year for the following reasons:
i. Itís too much ìspoon-feedingî and does not encourage self-reliance, use of book indexes, etc.
ii. People then start to think that these pages are required reading, rather than just guides as to where the material from lecture was covered. Thus the guide page numbers seem to only incite people to read the text by rote, rather than browsing through it and finding relevant (and even not so relevant) sections that interest them.

As well as copies of the recommended text books (Liem et al., Pough et al.), I've also put some other books on reserve that you may find useful. You may find certain sections in these texts more helpful in explaining various parts of the course than your own text. They are available for you to browse through, if needed, -- I will not be assigning specific readings from them.

1. K. Kardong --- Vertebrates: This text has terrific pictures in it, although there are some problems with errors. Many of the overheads that I use in class are from this book -- labeled with the page number so that you can look them up if you like. I did not assign this book as a textbook because, despite the great illustrations, the text is choppy and has a number of errors in it.
2. M. Hildebrand -- Functional Anatomy of the Vertebrates: This text is especially useful for the last third of the course, for its chapters on feeding and locomotion.
3. A. S. Romer - The Vertebrate Body: This was once the only decent textbook on this subject --- still valuable although the pictures are rather small. The new edition (coauthored by Parsons) is not in the library, although I have asked them to order it.
4. G. Kent - Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates: This text is too simplistic to be used as a main textbook for this course -- although I might use it if I were teaching the course at the freshman level. I've put it on reserve because if you're really having problems, it might be a good simplistic starting place to get more of a background.

I shall also be recommending some web sites for you to peruse. A good place to start is with the web site for Vertebrate Life, which leads you in to specific sites for the different chapters. Find it at: http://www.prenhall.com/pough.

In addition, I will be assigning some short papers taken from current semi-popular publications such as Science. These will mainly appear later on, as earlier in the course we're doing too much basic stuff to have relevant readings, but see below* for one current item. These readings (one every 1/2 weeks) will be on reserve at the Science Library. The purpose of these readings is to give you a feeling for how the field you are studying progresses and updates (most readings will be from 2001 or later). You will be expected to know material from these readings for the exams, and we may discuss them at the discussion sections. The information will be given out during lecture, and you will be responsible for knowing about what has been assigned.

* Stokes, M.D. and Holland, N.D. 1998. The Lancelet. American Scientist 46: 552-560.
This is an excellent short update about current views on the animal Amphioxus, that we will be discussing as a vertebrate ìprototypeî.

EXAMS There are three exams in this course; two mid-terms and a final. The final
is based primarily on lectures 26-36, but is cumulative inasmuch as it requires you to integrate previous knowledge obtained earlier in the course (many topics in these later lectures require information obtained earlier for their comprehension).

The first mid-term (2 hours) and the final (3 hours) also include a one hour lab exam. The distribution of grade percentage between the two midterms and the final is roughly (35:25:40).

The written exams consists of two sections: "quiz" type questions and short-answer essay questions that require integration of information as well as memorization (this is a good reason to come to the Monday evening review sessions). There is some choice available in the questions to be answered, but questions must be selected from both sections.

The lab exam also has two sections; one related to the diversity/
demo material and one to the dissections. Again, choice is available, but at least one question must be answered from the diversity section. The lab exams also require integration of the course material: for example, you might be asked not only to identify a particular muscle, but also to name the nerve supplying in the action that its contraction would produce.

Review sessions for both lecture and lab portions of the course will be arranged. Past exam will be available on reserve at the Sciences Library. If anyone has a conflict with the scheduled exam times (e.g., a sports meeting or a religious holiday) please let me know at least two weeks in advance; alternative exams may be scheduled, but only for compelling reasons.

A final note: I do not grade strictly on a curve, so it would be quite possible (if unlikely) for everyone to receive "A"s or "C"s. In past years, it has worked out that there are around 20% "A"s and 15% "C"s; failures have been rare. I set the exams to be "difficult", with the result that the "A/B" line is usually around 78%, the "B/C" line usually around 60%, and the "C/fail" line usually around 48%. Extra discretionary points may be given for performance if this markedly improves during the course of the semester.

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