(1) GEO 597L  (2) GEO 797M   (3) BIO 697B  (4)  OEB 597B 

1 Credit Seminar

Evolution and Earth History

A Graduate Seminar Course

Professor Lynn Margulis

Tuesday afternoons 2:30 to 4:25, room 215 Morrill Science Center (Plant Science Seminar room). Check for late schedule changes (545-3244).

Required reading: Margulis, L. 1993. Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, 2nd Edition. Freeman, New York

Prerequisite: Graduate status or consent of instructor.

Course description: A wide range of topics related to Proterozoic evolution, including the symbiotic origin of eukaryotic cells and their evolution, will be discussed. Papers from the primary literature will be read and short videos of live organisms will be shown each week. Selected faculty research scientists will be invited to discuss their work during the first hour of some of the classes.

Evaluation: Each student is required to present at least once during the semester on a topic of mutual agreement. A short (5-10 minutes) final presentation (with an abstract and reference list) will be requested from all participants towards the end of the semester. This 1 credit course may be taken for 3 credits with permission from the instructor if an individualized all-semester research project is undertaken.

Random sample of topics include:

·        Microbial communities, extant and fossil

·        Origin of the nucleated cells

·        Earliest fossil evidence for eukaryotes

·        Acritarchs and the protist fossil record

·        Origin and evolution of motility proteins

·        Searcy’s model of sulfur syntrophy and early eukaryotes

·        Manganese nodules: how are they formed?

·        Role of microbes in limestone to gypsum transitions

·        Cave microbes: snottites and moonmilk

·        Microorganisms and climate change

·        Biogeochemical processes: carbon and nitrogen cycles

·        Protist ecology and community structure

·        Archaebacteria and the prokaryotic ancestry of eukaryotes

·        The karyomastigont in the origin of the nucleus

·        Origin of mitosis and meiotic sex: prokaryotic precedents

·        Ciliate evolution and the protist fossil record

·        Foraminifera: life history, sexual stages, and fossil preservation

·        Glass-eating microbes, cherts and siliceous fossils

·        Intracellular magnetite in bacterial orientation

·        Chemotrophic symbionts at deep sea vents and seeps

·        Kinetosome-centriole reproduction: origin of microtubules and cilia

·        Biological rhythms: mechanisms and evidence from the fossil record

·        Transition from microbial mat to lithified stromatalites

·        Carbonate microbiolites