This course presents the principles of evolution, ecology, and behavior. 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.

An overview of evolutionary biology and its two major components, microevolution and macroevolution. The idea of evolution goes back before Darwin, although Darwin thought of natural selection. Evolution is driven by natural selection, the correlation between organism traits and reproductive success, as well as random drift. The history of life goes back approximately 3.7 billion years to a common ancestor, and is marked with key events that affect all life.

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, or groups of genes, which code for proteins.

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. These types of selection can result in directional, stabilizing, and disruptive outcomes. They can be driven by frequency-dependent selection and sexual selection, in addition to more standard types of selection.

Lectures included in the playlist above:

  1. The Nature of Evolution: Selection, Inheritance, and History
  2. Basic Transmission Genetics
  3. Adaptive Evolution: Natural Selection
  4. Neutral Evolution: Genetic Drift
  5. How Selection Changes the Genetic Composition of Population
  6. The Origin and Maintenance of Genetic Variation
  7. The Importance of Development in Evolution
  8. The Expression of Variation: Reaction Norms
  9. The Evolution of Sex
  10. Genomic Conflict
  11. Life History Evolution
  12. Sex Allocation
  13. Sexual Selection
  14. Species and Speciation
  15. Phylogeny and Systematics
  16. Comparative Methods: Trees, Maps, and Traits
  17. Key Events in Evolution
  18. Major Events in the Geological Theatre
  19. The Fossil Record and Life’s History
  20. Coevolution
  21. Evolutionary Medicine
  22. The Impact of Evolutionary Thought on the Social Sciences
  23. The Logic of Science
  24. Climate and the Distribution of Life on Earth
  25. Interactions with the Physical Environment
  26. Population Growth: Density Effects
  27. Interspecific Competition
  28. Ecological Communities
  29. Island Biogeography and Invasive Species
  30. Energy and Matter in Ecosystems
  31. Why So Many Species? The Factors Affecting Biodiversity
  32. Economic Decisions for the Foraging Individual
  33. Evolutionary Game Theory: Fighting and Contests
  34. Mating Systems and Parental Care
  35. Alternative Breeding Strategies
  36. Selfishness and Altruism