Ñý¼§Ö±²¥

Welcome to the Biol 200 webpage for Winter 2026

One of the most wondrous features of Biology is how evolution has generated so many different ways for organisms to grow, survive, and reproduce in their environments. This variation in how organisms complete their life cycles is the fundamental basis for the Tree of Life’s extraordinary biological diversity.  Our overall goal in this course is to provide students with the background knowledge and interpretive skills needed to recognize and appreciate the diversity of life and the mechanisms that generated it, so that their future studies of individual organisms or biological processes are placed in an appropriate evolutionary and ecological context.

Patterns of changing organizational complexity and species diversity since life originated are explained in terms of evolutionary processes and concepts such as adaptive radiation, endosymbiosis, structure-function relationships, horizontal gene transfer, and ecological impacts of alterations in environment. This course provides a phylogenetically-based overview of biodiversity across the Tree of Life and explicitly includes viruses, archaea, bacteria, algae, fungi, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates

Learning outcomes
By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Describe and discuss the diversity of living organisms across the ‘Tree of Life’ from both evolutionary and ecological perspectives â€“ How structure in biology is inter-related with function
2. Explain the primary and secondary mechanisms that generate biological diversity across the 'Tree of Life’
         –Primary (Natural selection based on the combination of phenotypic variability within populations caused by genetic mutation and environmental spatial and temporal heterogeneity (e.g. landscape, climate….)
        â€“Secondary (Features and impacts of diversity that generate more diversity)
3. Recognise, describe, and compare the principal unique features of a wide range of organisms including bacteria, archaea, algae, fungi, plants, and invertebrate and vertebrate animals   
4. Identify the phylogenetic relationships among the major groups of organisms, and distinguish their key characteristics using conventional taxonomic terminology and nomenclature
5. Interpret the relative success and diversity of the major organism groups in terms of adaptations for growth, survival and reproduction  
6. Describe the timelines of major steps in evolution

Teaching team: Dr. Paul Grogan (first half - microbes, algae, fungi and plants); Dr. Tim Birt (Invertebrate and Vertebrate animals; Dr. Anna Rooke (tutorials). 

Lecture Times: Mondays 11.30, Tuesdays 1.30, Thursdays 12.30.

Location: Dunning Hall Auditorium

Assessment:
30% Tutorial activities over the semester
25% Mid-term exam (in-person)
10% Two lecture quizzes (during the tutorial sessions on Weeks 4 and 10)
35% Final exam (including 10% overall synthesis section)
 

Pre-requisites: None

Calendar for the first half of the course (Dr. Grogan's section):

"Diversity across the Tree of Life is essentially the product of species evolving different ways to grow, survive, and reproduce in the context of environmental and biotically-mediated niche variability and occasional catastrophic extinction events."

Podcasts: What is the extent of biodiversity across the Tree of Life, and How and Why did it occur? The following short podcasts may help students grasp the principal over-arching concepts that I cover in the first half of the course, and that no doubt will apply to much of the content of the second half.  Each of the four short podcasts (7-12 minutes) contains two concepts.  I really hope they are interesting and useful to you, and I strongly recommend that you take good breaks between each of them to maximize their learning potential for you:

1.  Diversity begets diversity
2. Surface area-to-volume ratio as a fundamental property across the Tree of Life
3. ; Trend in life cycle reproduction modes from primitive to more advanced organisms across the Tree of Life
4. ; The evolutionary pattern of diversification across the Tree of Life is a product of both predictable and random factors - it could not have been foreseen, and its future is unknowable

Last Updated: 21 Jan 2026