6.049/7.33 Class Home

6.049/7.33 Evolutionary Biology

Spring 2012

Instructors: David Bartel, Robert C Berwick

TA: Xuebing Wu

Lecture: TR11-12.30 (56-154)

Announcements

old quiz

Dear friends,

We have posted a copy of the quiz we gave last year, fyi. The problems on this year’s quiz will not necessarily resemble those of last year’s quiz (with respect to either content or difficulty), so be sure to still learn vocabulary and concepts that were not covered on last year’s quiz. Note also that questions 1, 8, and 9 are not relevant to the material covered on our next quiz.

We also posted an answer key. Some of the answers have long explanations. Obviously, students who provided less detail still received full credit.

Dave and Bob

Announced on 07 April 2012 11:21 p.m. by David Bartel

Polyandrous birds

Examples of polyandrous birds include the spotted sandpiper and the red-necked phalarope. Both species defend nesting territory against other females and compete for males (mating with multiple males and leaving the males to incubate the clutches). I have posted pictures of two breeding red-necked phalaropes. I'll let you decide which one is the female and which one is the male.

Announced on 13 March 2012 5:26 p.m. by David Bartel

A note on asexual vs. sexual evoluionary speed

I have posted a short note under the Feb. 14th heading, demonstrating
why asexual evolution is faster than sexual evolution.
It's a simple proof, using the s and h formulation for
evolutionary change, but for some reason I have never seen in written down in a text.
You can thank Xuebing for putting it into LaTeX form.
Bob

Announced on 22 February 2012 6:10 p.m. by Robert C Berwick

Pset 1 typo in Problem 4.

Please note the small correction to the beginning of Problem 4 in Pset 1.
In the third sentence from the start, instead of:
"We further assume that there are just two alleles at one locus, A and a, with i copies of allele A,
so the frequency of A is initially p = 1/(N ), and (N − i) copies of a, so the frequency of a is initially q = (1 − p) = (N − i)/N ."

It should read that the frequency of A is initially i/(N):

"We further assume that there are just two alleles at one locus, A and a, with i copies of allele A,
so the frequency of A is initially p = i/(N ), and (N − i) copies of a, so the frequency of a is initially q = (1 − p) = (N − i)/N ."

Announced on 13 February 2012 8:54 a.m. by Robert C Berwick

Pset1 problems to try before the first quiz: UPDATE

Update: since we didn't cover mutation-selection balance, the (shorter list) of problems from Pset 1 you might want to try
Please make sure you have tried your hand at the following problems from Problem Set 1 before the first quiz next Thursday:
Problems 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2.
Thanks!

(1.6 and 2.3 are removed)

Announced on 09 February 2012 2:23 p.m. by Robert C Berwick