Week¹                             Topic²                                Reading³
 
 

1 (1/18)     Introduction, Assumptions; Evolution                     1
2 (1/25)     Systematics; Continental drift; Geological               Inside front
                time; Fossils                                          cover
3 (2/1)      Ontogeny & phylogeny; Deuterostomes and non-             2, 5
             vertebrate chordates. Select species for
             natural history paper (due Th, 2/3)
4 (2/8)      Non-vertebrate chordates; Chordate ontogeny;             6, 9
             Agnatha
5 (2/15)     Extant agnaths; Evolution of jaws;
             Midterm I (Th, 2/17)
6 (2/22)     Evolution of fins; Acanthodians; Placoderms;             7
             Elasmobranchs
7 (2/29)     Osteichthyes; Natural history paper (due                 8
             Th, 3/2)
8 (3/7)      Osteichthyes; Invasion of land; Lissamphibia             10 (262-282), 11
9 (3/14)     Lissamphibia; Amniote egg and placenta                   10 (282-288),21 (619-629)
10 (3/21)    Spring Vacation (no lectures or labs)
11 (3/28)    Amniote systematics; Middle ear; Midterm II              19 (567)
             (Tu, 3/30)
12 (4/4)     Mesozoic reptiles; Endothermy; K/T extinction;           13, 14, 16 (482-
             Modern reptiles; Natural history paper                   485), 12
             revision (due Th, 4/6)
13 (4/11)    Modern reptiles; Mammals                                 15, 19
14 (4/18)    Mammals                                                  20
15 (4/25)    Birds                                                    21, 13 (386-391)
16 (5/2)     Birds                                                    17, 18 (516-520)

(5/16)       Final Examination (Tu 8:30 - 11:30 am)

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¹Date in parentheses is the date on Tuesday of the week.
²Items in bold are examinations and due dates for papers.
³Numbers are chapters (pages are chapter sections to be read) in Pough et al. (1999).
 
 

Chordate Zoology is a general introduction to the biology of the vertebrates and other chordates. Lectures concern their relationships, diversity, morphology, life history, behavior, ecology, evolution, and paleontology. The laboratory introduces the vertebrate body plan, provides experience in dissection, and develops familiarity with anatomical terminology.
 

REQUIRED READING will be assigned from two books that may be purchased at Stony Books (near the train station on 25A) or the campus book store:
 

Lecture: F. H. Pough, C. M. Janis, and J. B. Heiser. 1999. Vertebrate Life, 5^th ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, xviii + 733 p.

Laboratory: Walker, W. F., Jr. and D. G. Homberger. 1992. Vertebrate Dissection, 8^th ed. Saunders College Publ., Philadelphia, xii + 459 p.

The weekly assignments for use with the laboratory manual are posted on the Chordate Zoology webpage. To access it, go to:
 

MIKE BELL'S OFFICE HOURS. My office hours are Tuesday and Wednesday 1:30 to 3:00 in Life Sciences room 023 (basement). Please visit my office unannounced during my office hours, make an appointment after class, by phone (632-8574) or by e-mail (mabell@life.bio.sunysb.edu), or just call when you want to visit. You may drop in unannounced at other times, but I may be unable to see you. I enjoy talking to students, but NY State pays me to teach you biology, and that includes meeting one on one.
 
 

A SPECIAL NOTE ON THE LABORATORY. The lab involves dissection, lab demonstrations, and examination of preserved specimens. It meets once per week for three hours. You will work mostly in pairs on dissections and should alternate with your partner in dissection and reading the instructions. You must read assigned sections of the lab manual before the lab meeting. You may need to spend extra time in the lab. The TA=s will hold their office hours (to be announced) for this purpose. Select a lab partner with a schedule that is compatible with yours so you can meet to finish incomplete exercises or study together. Labs will begin to meet the week of January 26. Roll may be taken twice: once in the first lecture and in the first lab meeting. Registered students who fail to attend both meetings may be dropped from the course roster.

LECTURE READING. Reading should be done by the beginning of the week in which it is listed (see lecture schedule). The text book should be used to resolve questions from lecture and will provide information we do not have time to cover in lecture. Furthermore, adherence to the reading schedule will make it easier to follow the lectures.
 
 

EXAMINATIONS AND GRADING. Grades will be based on 950 points.

Lecture Grade. 600 points, distributed as follows:
 

Midterm I - Thursday, February 17. . . . . . . . . . .  100 points
Midterm II - Tuesday, March 30 . . . . . . . . . . . .  200   "
Final Examination - Tuesday, May 16, 8:30 - 11:30  . .  300   "
 
 

Lecture exams will be based on information presented in all prior lectures, except for the immediate preceding one, and reading assigned for the period since the previous examination. There will be relatively few reading questions (5-15 % of points), and they will be general enough to be answered after a single attentive reading of the text. The midterms will be designed to take about an hour, and answers will be written directly on the test sheets. Most questions will require a few words or sentences. Examples of previous examinations will be posted outside my office and on the course web site.
 

Lecture midterms will be graded by the TAs, each of whom will grade a set of questions on all tests. Tests will normally be returned at the end of the second lecture after the exam. Check addition of the score immediately. Then compare your answers to the grading key posted outside my office. If you do not understand your grade on a question, see the grader of that question (not necessarily your lab TA), whose name will be noted on the grading key next to the question.
 

Give me advanced notice if you expect to miss an lecture exam. Contact me as soon as possible after an exam if advanced notice is impossible. If cannot provide a valid excuse for missing a midterm, a grade of zero will be assigned. If a valid excuse is provided, at my discretion, a makeup exam will be arranged or a score will be assigned for that midterm based on your performance on remaining lecture exams. You must take the final exam and at least one midterm plus participate in the lab (see below) to receive credit for the course. No one will be permitted to take the final or midterms early. Students who miss the final exam without an excuse will be assigned a grade of F in the course.
 

Laboratory Grade, 250 points. The lab grade is based on four quizzes and the TA evaluation score:
 

Lab quizzes (at least 4)  . . . . . . . . . .  200 points
TA evaluation score . . . . . . . . . . . . .   50
 

There will be at least four laboratory quizzes, but additional announced or unannounced quizzes may be given at the TA's discretion. No lab grades will be dropped from the final computation of course grades. Work completed since the previous quiz will be emphasized, but quizzes may also include questions on reading for that week's work and review questions from previous lab exercises. Procedures for lecture exams apply to lab quizzes, except that grading problems and questions about absences should be addressed to your lab TA. The format, content, and scheduling of the lab quizzes will be determined by the lab TA's, who will grade all lab quizzes.
 

Paper. 100 points. There will be a short natural history paper on a single chordate species of your choice (70 pt; due Th, 3/2). The paper will be read by the TAs. More information on the paper will be provided soon. There will be a one-point per day penalty (including non-school days) for each day (1) selection of the topic, (2) the paper, or (3) the paper revision is late.
 

You must select the species for your paper by February 2. The common and scientific names of the species for your natural history paper must be given submitted in lecture by Thursday, February 3. Only one paper per species will be permitted, and the number of papers per taxonomic group may be limited.
 
 

UPPER DIVISION WRITING REQUIREMENT. The paper from BIO344 may be submitted by Biology Majors to meet the "Upper-Division Writing Requirement" for the major (see applicable Undergraduate Bulletin). Forms and information are available in the Undergraduate Biology Office. I must sign your form, but it is your responsibility to submit the form to the Undergrduate Biology Office.
 
 

COURSE GRADE DISTRIBUTION. The course grade will be computed by adding all lab, paper, and lecture scores listed above. The average grade in this course is usually a C+ (2.4, A = 4.0). However, the grade distribution (including +/-) and average grade depend on the point distribution.
 
 

DISABILITIES. If you have a physical, psychiatric, emotional, medical or learning disability that may affect your ability to complete course assignments, please contact staff in the Disabled Student Services office (DSS), Humanities Building room 133 (632-6748/TDD). DSS will review your concerns and determine with you what accommodations are necessary and appropriate. Information and documentation of disability are confidential.
 
 

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. Tests and due dates for papers were selected to avoid religious observances. If I have failed to take a holiday for your religion into account, please inform me as soon as possible, and alternative arrangements will be made.
 
 

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY. Any effort to circumvent the evaluation process to improve any student's grade is academic dishonesty. Such efforts include but are not limited to unauthorized examination of written materials (e.g., neighbors' papers, notes on your hand) during examinations, plagiarism (see below), misrepresentation of the cause of an absence from lab or during an examination, and theft of laboratory or University library materials. Such thefts give the thief an unfair advantage in the course and impose a significant, unnecessary cost on the University. Please report academic dishonesty to me, and anonymity will be protected if requested. If I believe academic dishonesty has occurred, I will submit an accusation with supporting evidence to the Academic Judiciary Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences and recommend imposition of an F in the course. Accused students will be informed after the report has been submitted. There are no mitigating circumstances for academic dishonesty.
 
 

Plagiarism is misrepresentation of another person's writing as one's own. You are responsible for understanding what plagiarism is; see me if you are unsure about the definition of plagiarism. Plagiarism includes submission of another person=s paper, as if it is your own. It also includes incorporating from published or unpublished sources one or more sentences, whether they are intact or slightly modified, whether the sentences are consecutive or scattered among sentences you have written yourself. It even includes incorporating pieces of sentences written by other authors in your own sentences. The reason to prohibit plagiarism is that you are expected to learn about a topic and discuss the topic in your own words. Similarly, a paper consisting of long passages in quotation marks with literature citations is not plagiarism, but it does not reflect your learning and will be graded accordingly. If I believe plagiarism has occurred on a paper, I will report it to the Academic Judiciary Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences. Because I have clearly described what constitutes plagiarism, I will recommend that a grade of F in the course be assigned to plagiarists.
 
 

While I try to punish cheating severely, some collaboration is encouraged: (1) preparation for examinations, (2) performance of laboratory exercises, and (3) criticism (not rewriting) of the form (including proofreading) and content of papers. If you prepare for lab quizzes or lecture exams with another student, do not sit near her or him during the exam because students who study together sometimes make similar errors, creating the suspicion of cheating. Innocence is easily verified if students with similar errors sat far apart during the test.
 

MY LECTURES. I sometimes mis-speak, I am sometimes unclear, and sometimes make unwarranted assumptions about what students know. Please ask for immediate clarification during a lecture if I say something you do not understand. Good questions help insure that unclear points are clarified and provide me with feedback.
 

TEACHING ASSISTANT PERFORMANCE. I depend on student feedback to insure that TAs are performing well. I assume everything is alright unless I students complain. I will take complaints in confidence, but it may be difficult to act on them without the TA being able to infer the student's identity.
 

LETTERS OF REFERENCE. I prefer not to write letters of reference unless they are (1) informative and (2) positive. Thus, you must ask your lab TA if she or he will write such a report on you to me. If so, I will review the TA report and decide whether it is suitable for me to write the letter. Thus, even if the TA writes a report on you, I may decide it is not good enough for me to write a good letter for you. A poor letter would deprive students of the opportunity to get a more positive letter from another referee. If the TA recommends you to me, you should visit me after class or in my office, and tell me your name and that you have requested a letter of reference. Often I remember something useful to say about a face that I cannot otherwise match with a name.
 

If you use a reference form from a program, give your TA a completed original and photocopy of the form completely filled out. The following information may be needed:
 

1. Your name as it appears on your transcript.
2. My Name: Michael A. Bell
3. My Title: Professor
4. Reason for concern/association: Instructor in Chordate Zoology course (BIO 344).
5. Period of association: Spring semester 2000.
6. Affiliation/Address: Department of Ecology and Evolution, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-5245.
7. Phone number: (631) 632-8574, 632-8600.
8. E-mail: mabell@life.bio.sunysb.edu

Also be sure to complete and sign the waiver section concerning your right to see the form after it has been submitted, regardless of whether you choose to waive this right. Give the original and copy of the completed form to your lab TA who will fill out the copy and give it and the original to me. Provide a stamped addressed envelope with my name and my return address only for letters to be mailed off campus. If you use a form from another institution, make extra copies of the form before filling it out, in case I decline to submit it. I may not submit reference forms for students who have not followed these instructions. Check the bulletin board outside my office, call, e-mail, or see me after the semester to determine whether I submitted your letter. Check with the recipient institution before its deadline to determine whether my letter arrived.