84886 - EVO-DEVO

Learning outcomes

This course aims at providing students specific knowledge deriving from the integration of evolutionary dynamics (“Evo”) and the fundamental basis of developmental mechanisms (“Devo”), as aspects of the same process. By discussing the main topic of evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-Devo), the student will understand how this discipline is unifying and informative, enabling the formation of a scientific point of view about biological diversity that goes beyond a plain description. The student will learn to understand the processes that led to the present biodiversity by connecting the organization plan of body structures to evolutionary aspects, and in the meanwhile developing communicative abilities on such subjects. Being Evo-Devo a science at the interface between developmental biology, molecular biology, genomics, systematics, and paleontology, this course will allow to better understand the mechanisms and the processes of the evolutionary change, also providing dialectical tools for their disclosure.

Course contents

Part I.

Thinking about evolution by taking development on board

• Evo-Devo as a discipline.
• Making evolutionary predictions about the structure of development and morphology: beyond the neo-Darwinian and constraints paradigms.
• Conflicting hypotheses on the nature of mega-evolution.
  
• The molecular biology underlying developmental evolution.
• Evo-devo’s identity: from model organisms to developmental types.

Part II.

Evo-devo: methods and materials

• A pragmatic approach for selecting evo-devo model species in amniotes.
• On comparisons and causes in evolutionary developmental biology.
  

Part III.

Evolving diversity

• Unravelling body plan and axial evolution in the Bilateria with molecular phylogenetic markers.
• Are transposition events at the origin of the bilaterian Hox complexes?
• Many roads lead to Rome: different ways to construct a nematode.

Part IV.

Evolving body features

• Urbisexuality: the evolution of bilaterian germ cell specification and reproductive systems.

Other details:

• The course does not include laboratory activity.
• Interactive lessons (from one to three, depending on the number of students) are planned during the course, consisting in presentations prepared and performed individually by each student and discussed with the class. Such presentations will pertain scientific articles chosen by the teacher on subjects of the course. Such presentations will grant the admission to the final oral exam at the end of the course.

Readings/Bibliography

• Text book required: “Evolving Pathways - Key Themes in Evolutionary Developmental Biology” Edited by Alessandro Minelli and Giuseppe Fusco University of Padova, Italy. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• The presentations used during the course by the teacher and the papers presented and discussed with the class are required material and will be available on Insegnamenti Online (IOL), https://iol.unibo.it/.

Teaching methods

• Lectures and interactive sessions consisting in individual presentations by each student and following discussions with the class.
• The attendance to the lectures allows to participate in the discussions with the class, whose positive evaluation is necessary to be admitted to the final oral exam.

Assessment methods

Teaching tools

Slides, online contents.

Office hours

See the website of Liliana Milani