Evolution, Ecology and Behavior - Audio
By Stephen C. Stearns
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Description
(EEB 122) This course presents the principles of evolution, ecology, and behavior for students beginning their study of biology and of the environment. It discusses major ideas and results in a manner accessible to all Yale College undergraduates. Recent advances have energized these fields with results that have implications well beyond their boundaries: ideas, mechanisms, and processes that should form part of the toolkit of all biologists and educated citizens. This course was recorded in Spring 2009.
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25 - Interactions with the Physical Environment | Every species on earth has an environmental range in which it can live. Usually it flourishes in the central portion of this range. Organisms contain a host of adaptations that allow them to manipulate their environments to remain within their... | 10/14/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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22 - The Impact of Evolutionary Thought on the Social Sciences | There is a distinct possibility that humans are currently part way through an evolutionary transition between individuals and groups. The conflict between these two units of selection and levels of organization, between biology and culture... | 10/12/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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36 - Selfishness and Altruism | Originally, altruism and self-sacrifice were thought to be incompatible with natural selection, even by Darwin. Now we have several explanations for how altruism can increase an individual's fitness. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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35 - Alternative Breeding Strategies | Breeding strategies differ both among males and females of the same species as well as among different species. The difference in breeding strategies among members of the same species can usually be linked to frequency dependence. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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34 - Mating Systems and Parental Care | Mating systems and parental care vary tremendously from species to species. Every species differs in how it protects its young from predators and provides its young with food, if it does so at all. The physical environment as well as behavioral... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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33 - Evolutionary Game Theory: Fighting and Contests | The economic concept of game theory can be readily applied to evolution and behavior. By analyzing encounters between organisms as a mathematical "game," important information such as fitness payoffs and the proportions of "strategies" played by... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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32 - Economic Decisions for the Foraging Individual | There are several ways to examine the behaviors of organisms when they forage or hunt for food or mates. These behaviors become more complex in higher organisms, such as primates and whales, which can hunt in groups. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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31 - Why So Many Species? The Factors Affecting Biodiversity | One can look at biodiversity from several perspectives. An ecological point of view tries to determine how necessary diversity is for an ecosystem to function. An economic point of view tries to capture the value of the "services" nature provides for... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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30 - Energy and Matter in Ecosystems | The movement of matter and energy around the planet is very important, and its study draws on geology, and meterology in addition to chemistry. Energy tends to flow upwards from plantlike producers to herbivores to carnivores before... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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29 - Island Biogeography and Invasive Species | Geography is very important in ecology. Two major systems have been designed to model this, island biogeography and metapopulations. The idea of metapopulations is more recent, and has emerged as the dominant theory. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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28 - Ecological Communities | The idea of ecological communities has changed tremendously over the past 40 years. The classical view stated that there were so many different species because evolution packed them tightly into the available niches. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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27 - Interspecific Competition | Competition among species, or inter-specific competition, can have an even greater effect on selection than competition within species (intra-specific competition). This is often the case in lower density populations. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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26 - Population Growth: Density Effects | The growth of populations is held in check by several factors. These can include predators, food and other resources, and density. Population density affects growth rate by determining how likely is it that an organism will interact with a member... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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24 - Climate and the Distribution of Life on Earth | This lecture provides an overview of the physical aspects of earth's biomes. Temperature, water, latitude, and altitude all come into play. Regions with similar levels of these climatic features tend to have similar life-forms living there. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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23 - The Logic of Science | While there are many differences between modern science and philosophy, there are still a number of lessons in modes of thought that scientists can take from philosophy. Scientists' ideas about the nature of science have evolved over time... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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21 - Evolutionary Medicine | Evolution plays an important though underutilized role in medicine. Evolution guides how our bodies respond to various treatments, how pathogens will respond to treatments, and how pathogens' responses will change over time. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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20 - Coevolution | Coevolution happens at many levels, not just the level of species. Organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts serve as good intracellular examples. Other living things make up a crucial component of an organism's environment. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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19 - The Fossil Record and Life's History | The fossil record holds a lot of evolutionary information that can't be seen on shorter time scales, although the more recent fossil record is more complete. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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18 - Major Events in the Geological Theatre | Geology and climate have shaped the development of life tremendously. This has occurred in the form of processes such as the oxygenation of the atmosphere, mass extinctions, tectonic drift, and disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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17 - Key Events in Evolution | The history of life and evolution has been characterized by several key events. These events can be grouped as new hierarchal levels of selection coming into play, as biological units coming together in symbiosis and specialization, or in a number of... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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16 - Comparative Methods:Trees, Maps, and Traits | We can use methods of genetic analysis to connect phylogenic information to geographical histories. Human migration has left genetic traces on every continent, and allows us to trace our roots back to Africa. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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15 - Phylogeny and Systematics | The Tree of Life must be discovered through rigorous analysis. Genetic information is crucial because appearances can be deceiving, and species that look similar can prove to be genetically very dissimilar and not share recent common ancestors. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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14 - Species and Speciation | Speciation is the process through which species diverge from each other and/or from a common ancestor. There are several definitions of species, most of which focus on reproductive isolation and/or phylogenetic similarities. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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13 - Sexual Selection | Sexual Selection is a component of natural selection in which mating success is traded for survival. Natural selection is not necessarily survival of the fittest, but reproduction of the fittest. Sexual dimorphism is a product of sexual selection. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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12 - Sex Allocation | Sex allocation is an organism's decision on how much of its reproductive investment should be distributed to male and female functions and/or offspring. Under most conditions, the optimal ratio is 50:50, but that can change under certain circumstances. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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10 - Genomic Conflict | Genomic conflict arises when the interests of various genomic elements, such as chromosomes and cytoplasmic organelles, are not aligned. These conflicts arise in two situations: either when one unit is contained within another, as a mitochondrion... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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11 - Life History Evolution | Life history covers three main classes of traits in organisms: age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and lifespan and reproductive investment. Organisms must make tradeoffs among these traits that typically cause them to... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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09 - The Evolution of Sex | There are several explanations for the evolution of sex evolution and its continued prevalence. One is facilitating the spread of helpful mutations while hastening the removal of harmful ones. Another is expediting resistance against pathogens. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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08 - The Expression of Variation: Reaction Norms | Reaction norms depict the range of phenotypes a single genotype can produce, depending on the environment. Reaction norms must fit within an organism's phylogenetic constraints. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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07 - The Importance of Development in Evolution | Development is responsible for the complexity of multicellular organisms. It helps to map the genotype into the phenotype expressed by the organism. Development is responsible for ancient patterns among related organisms, and many structures... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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06 - The Origin and Maintenance of Genetic Variation | Mutations are the origin of genetic diversity. Mutations introduce new traits, while selection eliminates most of the reproductively unsuccessful traits. Sexual recombination of alleles can also account for much of the genetic diversity in sexual specie | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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05 - How Selection Changes the Genetic Composition of Population | Genetics controls evolution. There are four major genetic systems, which are combinations of sexual/asexual and haploid/diploid. In all genetic systems, adaptive genetic change tends to start out slow, accelerate in the middle, and occur slowly at the.. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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04 - Neutral Evolution: Genetic Drift | Neutral evolution occurs when genes do not experience natural selection because they have no effect on reproductive success. Neutrality arises when mutations in an organism's genotype cause no change in its phenotype, or when changes... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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03 - Adaptive Evolution: Natural Selection | Adaptive Evolution is driven by natural selection. Natural selection is not "survival of the fittest," but rather "reproduction of the fittest." Evolution can occur at many different speeds based on the strength of the selection driving it. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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01 - The Nature of Evolution: Selection, Inheritance, and History | The lecture presents an overview of evolutionary biology and its two major components, microevolution and macroevolution. | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
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02 - Basic Transmission Genetics | Genetic transmission is the mechanism that drives evolution. DNA encodes all the information necessary to make an organism. Every organism's DNA is made of the same basic parts, arranged in different orders. DNA is divided into chromosomes... | 10/6/2009 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 36 Items |
Customer Reviews
Great Class
Very engaging and interesting, covers a wide swath of information in a unified and enlightening manner. In particular, this course offers excellent perspective on further understanding evolution and its mechanisms.
