Biology 305

Biology of Land Plants

Spring, 2011

NEWS and UPDATES
This page was updated last on: May 5, 2011

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5/5/11

I’ve calculated your grades based on all points you could have earned to date. The total number of possible points from exams and quizzes will be 520 (200 of these will be determined by Monday’s exams). As described on the syllabus, this will represent 70% of the total, so the total number of possible points in the class will be 743 (520/.7). This means that there are 186 points possible for the lab (743 x 25%) and 37 points possible for participation (743 x 5%).

4/26/11 I will make the following announcements in class tomorrow.

• On Wednesday April 27 we will complete Topic 13 and begin Topic 14.

• In lab this week (April 28) you will carry out labs #11 and 12, Seedless Vascular Plants, parts 1 and 2.

• There will NOT be a lab next Thursday (May 5).

• The last quiz will be on Wednesday, May 4. It will cover everything since the last quiz. Lowest of 7 quizzes will be dropped.

• Final Exam is on Monday May 9, 10:00 – 11:50. It consists of two parts, which are worth 100 points each.

• Hour Exam #3 will cover everything since the last exam (Topics 10-14). The format will be similar to previous exams.

• The Comprehensive Final Exam will cover the entire course. It will consist only of Multiple Choice and True/False questions. Answers will be marked on Scantrons and machine graded. Here is a brief Study Guide that covers the entire course.

4/18/11

Today we completed Topic 12 and began Topic 13. Lecture slides for the latter are available now.

Quiz #6 will be on Friday, April 22. It will cover Topics 10, 11 and 12 (Phylogeny, Algae, and Bryophytes).

4/2/11

Yesterday in class we discussed the possibility of altering the lab schedule. Most of you were in favor of not having a lab on May 5, the last day of the semester. I just had a hard look at what we still need to accomplish in the lecture and the lab. It is very important that I present most or all of the material on a topic in lecture before you see it in lab. With an exam and a quiz scheduled for this week, there is no way that I can adequately prepare you for Lab #9 (Algae and Non-Vascular Plants) by this Thursday. Consequently, there will be no lab on April 7 (use the time to study for the exam). I will decide later about what we will do on May 5. I hope you realize that if we do have lab on that day, I will not be asking you to do anything more than what was initially expected of you. Rather, I simply would not be giving you the gift of a day off. Nevertheless, I truly apologize if I misled you yesterday.

3/30/11

We nearly completed our discussion of fruits today. We will wrap up topic #9 on Angiosperm Reproduction on Friday. Quiz #5 will be on Wednesday, April 6. It will cover topic #9 (nothing more, nothing less). FYI, means on the 4 quizzes you have taken so far were 14.9, 14.1, 15.4 and 15.2 (all out of 20).

Exam #2 will be on Friday April 8. It will cover the following topics: #5, stems; #6, leaves; #8, wood and secondary growth; and #9, angiosperms. The general format and point distributions among different types of questions will be similar to the first exam.

The remainder of the course will be devoted to studying the evolution of major groups of plants. We will begin with a short topic on phylogenetic methods and concepts. Lecture slides for this topic are available now (see below).

3/25/11

Quiz #4 will be on Monday, March 28. It will cover Topic #8 “Wood and Secondary Growth.” As I mentioned in class today, I will drop one quiz IF we have a total of at least 7 quizzes during the semester. Most students in attendance seemed to think this was a good idea.

There are a number of you who miss class quite a bit. I don’t take this personally – you are all adults who make adult decisions. The few points you miss on “participation points” probably will not affect your grade too much. However, missing out on class material and explanations of biological phenomena is likely to have a large effect on how you perform on tests and quizzes. It’s up to you.

3/23/11

On Monday we discussed a generic alternation of generations lifecycle, which occurs in all plants. It’s really important that you understand this, as it will be the foundation for understanding lifecycles and reproduction in all of the groups of plants we discuss during the remainder of the semester. Figure 12-15 in Raven is similar to the drawing that I made. You should have a firm understanding of the following terms (among many others!): sporophyte, meiosis, spore, gametophyte, gamete, fertilization and zygote. This figure also shows how the characteristic plant lifecycle (also found in some algae) is different from lifecycles in animals and fungi.

Lab this week will involve studying flower structure, and the production of male and female gametes. As discussed in class today, eggs are produced by megagametophytes (female gametophytes), which are called embryo sacs in angiosperms. Sperm are produced by microgametophytes (male gametophytes) called pollen grains; we did not get to talk about this today.

3/9/11

Here’s the list I showed you in class of human uses of common types of wood. This is required reading, but you don’t need to know it in detail. Wood is not covered on Friday’s quiz.

3/6/11

On Monday, we will complete Topic 6. We need to wrap up nitrogen fixation and carnivorous plants. After this, we will begin talking about wood and secondary growth (Topic 8). Slides for this topic are available now. What about Topic 7 on Photosynthesis? I’ve decided not to cover it right now. If time permits, we will do it later.

You might be interested in checking out Roger Hangarter’s “Plants in Motion” website.

2/28/11

You can pick up your exams any time you can find me, or I’ll return them to you in class on Wednesday. Overall the class did quite well, including a couple of near perfect grades. The mean was 77 and the median was 82. Why the difference between these two “averages”? Unfortunately, this is because a handful of individuals scored considerably below the mean. If you are part of this group, I am particularly interested in helping you to improve your performance on future exams and quizzes.

If your grade was, say, 79.5, please don’t ask me “Is it a B? Do you round up?” or similar questions. For now, it is listed in my records a 79.5. If any curving or adjustments are to be done, they will be done only at the very end of the semester.

2/21/11

Exam plans are finalized. It will cover all of Topic 3 except nitrogen fixation. It also will cover Topic 4 but, as I indicated in class, only to the depth that we discuss in class. That is, I’ll expect you to know most of the take home messages on the slides, but will not hold you responsible for details about mechanisms. About half of the points on the exam will be from objective questions similar to quizzes. Some questions will come from quizzes or may be similar to quiz questions (it’s probably best to presume that a question that appears identical to one you’ve seen before is actually different). The other half will require some writing, mostly short answer. Here is a brief study guide.

2/20/11

1. Exam #1 will be on Friday, February 25. It will cover material at least through Topic #3 (Roots). We will discuss this in class tomorrow.

2. We are a little behind where I’d like to be, in part due to the blizzard. I try to present concepts in class before you encounter them in the lab. This week’s lab deals with the control of stem development (Topic 5) by hormones (Topic 4). Lecture slides for these topics are available now, which are pretty much what I used last year. I will NOT cover all of this in detail.

2/13/11

Several announcements:

1. Here is the link to Sam’s Powerpoints of his lab presentations. This information also should help you to better understand things I talk about in lecture https://sites.google.com/site/landplantslab/

2. Slides for Topic #3 Roots are available now. These are modified only slightly from last year; they will probably be updated a bit more as we go along.

3. Quiz #2 will be on Friday February 18, 2011. It will cover all of Topic #2.

1/30/11

Here is a useful addendum on plant cells and tissues from Albert’s “Molecular Biology of the Cell.”

Marchantia “forest”. Marchantia is a liverwort. Shown are male and female reproductive structures called antheridiophores and archegoniophores, which grown from scale-like vegetative thalli.  Flat-topped antheridiophores produce motile (flagellated) sperm.  The palm tree-like archegoniophores bear archegonia, which produce eggs (archegonia are not visible here).  An egg is fertilized to produce a 2n zygote; mitosis produces a multicellular 2n sporophyte; and finally, meiosis of 2n cells produces 1n spores.  The yellow blob on one archegoniophore is a mass of spores being released from a sporangium.

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Additional readings:
Topic #1, Introduction (optional reading, if you're interested) "Toward a Theory of Plant Blindness", by Jamer Wandersee and Elizabeth Schussler

Topic #9, Phylogeny. Palmer JD, Soltis DE, and Chase MW (2004).  The plant tree of life:  an overview and some points of view.  American Journal of Botany 91:1437-1445. 

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Prof. Joel Stafstrom  (Research Interests)

Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb IL, 60115
phone: (815) 753-3207
email: stafstrom@niu.edu
Office Hours (MO 342): Monday 9-12; Friday, 1-4; or by appointment.

Course Syllabus

PowerPoint Slides

· NOTE: These PowerPoint presentations are merely outlines of what we discuss in class. They cannot substitute for attending class, paying attention, taking your own notes, reading the book and studying diligently!!!

· I will try to have presentations available before we begin each chapter.

Introduction

1. Plant Cells

2. a) Early Development; b) Cells and Tissues

3. Roots

4. Hormones

5. Stems

6. Leaves

7. Photosynthesis

8. Wood and Secondary Growth

9. Angiosperm Reproduction

10. Principles of Phylogeny

11. Algal Ancestors

12. Non-Vascular Plants (bryophytes)

13. Seedless Vascular Plants

14. Gymnosperms

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Links (more links are included in lecture outlines)

General

Raven, Evert and Eichorn, Biology of Plants (7/e)

Plants in Motion (Roger Hangartner, Indiana University)
Plant Systematics Collection (U. Wisconsin)
Land Plants Outlines (Southern Illinois University)
Botanical gardens, collections, images (UC Berkeley)
C-Fern (Ceratopteris)
Internet Directory for Botany
Missouri Botanical Gardens
Vascular plant image gallery (by family)
WFP - Wisconsin Fast Plants
Plant Images (Botany Society of America)

Phylogeny, Systematics and Evolution

Tree of Life
Tree Base (Harvard)
Deep Green Project - green plant phylogeny
Evolution Teaching Site (excellent!! from UC Berkeley)

Algae and Bryophytes

Algal collections and databases
American Bryological and Lichenological Society
Bryology (Missouri Botanical Garden)

Vascular Plants

Morphology of vascular plants (course syllabus, Prof. Wolf, Cal. State, Stanislaus)
Trees of the Pacific Northwest
Wollemi pine - the dinosaur tree!

Flowering Plants

Flower structure (U. Hamburg)
Flower structure and evolution -- "Mostly Male Theory" (U. Toronto)

Physiology, Molecular Biology and Genomics

Agricultural Biotechnology (USDA)
Demeter's Genomes