Description

Sorting out the phylogeny of the Order of Primates is designed as a hands on assignment where students use multiple characteristics to develop phylogenetic trees for 18 primate species and two outlier species. Students will use images of skulls and bodies of each species, followed by a table of several other morphological characteristics that will help to identify share, derived traits used to place the species in a pre-fabricated tree with a few species inserted to get them on track. Following the use of these morphological chracteristics to develop a tree, the students will then use molecular genetics to develop another tree for the same species. The students will use the National Center for Biological Information (NCBI) website to get the nucleotide sequence for the cytochrome b gene. Accession numbers or other means to get to the sequence are provided . These data will then be used in the Phylogeny.fr website or the Clustal Omega website to generate a phylogenetic tree based on differences within the cytochrome b gene among the species. Several questions are included at the end of the assignment that incorporate a certain level of critical thinking.

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