GEOL479 - Macroevolution

Macroevolution, or evolution above the population level and on long time scales, as a field addresses fundamental questions about the origins of life, past and present. These include but are not limited to: How are highly dissimilar species related? Why are animals on distant continents so similar? How and when did major groups, like birds or mammals, originate? What drives evolutionary arms races? Why are there so many more species of beetle than crocodile? Why are there more species in the tropics than the arctic? Did dinosaurs prevent the diversification of mammals? Why do some animals survive mass extinction? How can invasive species spread so rapidly? Students will learn important concepts underlying our understanding of modern biodiversity and the fossil record, as well as how to use different methods and lines of evidence, including evolutionary trees (phylogeny), fossil databases, past climate and global events, mathematical modeling, and even modern genomics, to answer fundamental questions about the evolution of life.