Insect Biodiversity and Evolution

Catalog description

This course is designed to teach students about insect taxonomy, evolutionary history, collection and preservation techniques, morphology, fossils, and natural history. Lab work focuses on adult forms, especially of insects found in Pennsylvania. Students learn how to handle specimens, use diagnostic keys, and identify insects by sight. Collecting techniques will be honed during field trips. Upon completion of this course students will be able to: (1) teach others how to collect, preserve, and transport insect specimens; (2) name and sight-identify all insect orders and several common local families; (3) label a generalized insect diagram with external anatomy terms; (4) draw a phylogenetic tree of relationships between insect orders; (5) demonstrate understanding of how to read a phylogenetic tree, what kinds of data are used to estimate trees, how those data are analyzed, and what it means to be monophyletic; (6) describe key innovations and life history strategies of major insect lineages; (7) solve taxonomic problems and describe how species and other taxa are named and described, i.e., understand the fundamentals of taxonomic practice; (8) name and briefly describe the latest developments in insect biodiversity research; (9) explain how hexapods inform us about biodiversity and influence our conservation decisions.