SYSTEMATIC BOTANY
ECOL/PLS 472/572
SYLLABUS
Spring 2005
January 10, 2005
Lecture: MW 9:00 AM Koffler 216
Lab: MW 10:00 AM - 12:50 PM Koffler 441
1. Instructor:
Dr. Steven P. McLaughlin
Professor, Arid Lands Studies
Curator, Herbarium (ARIZ)
Offices: Herring Hall 103 A, 621-7243
Arid Lands 107A, 621-8577
Natural Products Center (Lab), 741-1691
Email: spmcl@ag.arizona.edu
Homepage: http://ag.arizona.edu/~spmcl/mclaughlin.html
Assisting Staff:
Philip Jenkins, Collection Manager, Herbarium (Herring 105, 621-7243)
Edward Gilbert, Database Manager, Herbarium (Herring 103A, 621-7243)
Teaching Assistants:
Chuck Price cprice@email.arizona.edu
Anna Tyler atyler@email.arizona.edu
2. Office hours or a statement of an open-door policy:
Dr. McLaughlin, Tu-Th 12:00 - 1:45 PM, Herring 103A. Other times and places by appointment.
3. Course description and overview:
This course will emphasize the identification and classification of vascular plants, with a focus on the flowering plants. Lectures and laboratories will concentrate on morphological features, both vegetative and reproductive, that characterize a representative sample of vascular plant families, with emphasis on the most common families in the flora of western North America. Systems and principles of classification will also be covered. Students are expected to: (1) interpret and describe morphological features of both fresh and dry specimens; (2) learn how to use dichotomous keys to identify plant specimens to family, genus, and species; (3) be able to identify and distinguish representatives of 91 selected plant families; and (4) learn to collect, identify, and prepare specimens of plants from the local flora.
4. Grade and absence policies:
Students are expected to attend all regularly scheduled class and laboratory meetings.
Regular grades are awarded for this course: A B C D E. Grades for ECOL/PLS 472 will be based on exams, lab practicals, and a plant collection as follows:
Midterm: 50 points
First Lab Practical: 50 points
Final: 50 points
Second Lab Practical: 50 points
Plant Collection: 50 points
Students enrolled in ECOL/PLS 572 will have an additional independent project worth another 50 points. Minimum cutoffs for grades will be:
A: 90%
B: 80%
C: 70%
D: 60%
5. List of Required Texts:
The following text is required for all students:
Judd, W. S., Campbell, C. S., Kellogg, E. A., Stevens, P. F., and Donoghue, M. J. 2002. Plant systematics: a phylogenetic approach. Second Edition. Sinauer. ISBN: 0-87893-403-0.
In addition, students will need a copy (provided) of the following for the laboratory work and plant collection:
Kearney, T. H., Peebles, R. H., and collaborators. 1960. Arizona flora. Second Edition. University of California Press.
Copies of the latter can be checked out from the Herbarium, and must be returned at the end of the course. Students not returning checked out materials will receive an “I”.
6. Number of required examinations and papers:
Students in both 472 and 572 will take a midterm exam, final exam, and two laboratory practicals. In addition, students in 572 are required to prepare a paper describing the results of an independent literature review project.
7. Required extra-curricular activities:
Each student will be required to make a collection of 30 pressed, dried, and labeled plant specimens. The collection must include:
a. At least 5 monocots.
b. At least 10 different families.
c. No more than 3 species from any one family.
There will be two field trips during which students can make collections. Budget, dates and destinations for field trips have not been finalized. [Tentative dates are March 5-6, and March 26]. Details of plant collection and label preparation will be covered in class. Plant presses will be checked out to students. Collections should be turned in with a cover sheet listing the identifications of all specimens. All collections will become the property of the Herbarium; presses must be returned at the end of the semester.
8. Project for 572 Students:
In Arizona Flora, other floras and manuals published prior to ca. 1980, and in many herbaria (including ARIZ), vascular plant families are arranged according to the system of classification of Adolf Engler and his coworkers (Engler & Prantl, Engler & Diels). This was a putatively “phylogenetic” system at the time of its creation. In the last two decades of the 20th Century, several other systems were published, based on revised ideas of primitive and advanced morphological characteristics, and new information on many additional characters. The most widely discussed and adopted of these systems were those of Armen Takhtajan, Arthur Cronquist, and Robert Thorne. These three systems were published at about the same time as other systematists began using molecular data and cladistic analyses. Judd et al. (1999, 2002) is the first comprehensive plant systematics textbook to be based on advances in molecular systematics and phylogenetic analyses.
The graduate student (ECOL/PLS 572) project involves (1) selecting an order as circumscribed by Engler (in consultation with the instructor); (2) describing the morphological basis for Engler’s circumscription, i.e., what morphological features do the families placed in that order share; (3) providing a brief description of the families comprising that order, including their sizes and distributions, (4) showing how those families were placed in a more recent treatment (Takhtajan, Cronquist, or Thorne); and (5) discussing how those families are now classified in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system.
Students will present their work as a written report, and give a brief oral presentation. The report must be documented; literature citations should follow the format used in current issues of Systematic Botany.
Incomplete synopses of Cronquist’s system and Thorne’s system are included on the CD accompanying your text. A complete sysnopsis of the APG system can be found in Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003), and on the web (www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/welcome.html). A synopsis of the Engler system (Engler and Diels, 1936) will be provided; a discussion of this system can be found in Lawrence (1951). Complete synopses of the systems of Takhtajan, Cronquist, and Thorne will also be provided.
References:
ANGIOSPERM PHYLOGENY GROUP. 2003. An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG II. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 141: 399-436.
CRONQUIST, A. 1988. The evolution and classification of flowering plants. 2nd Edition. New York: New York Botanical Garden.
ENGLER, A, and L. DIELS. 1936. Syllabus der pflanzenfamilien. Aufl. 11. Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger.
LAWRENCE, G. H. M. 1951. Taxonomy of vascular plants. New York: The MacMillan Company.
TAKHTAJAN, A. L. 1969. Flowering Plants: Origin and Dispersal. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
TAKHTAJAN, A. L. 1997. Diversity and classification of flowering plants. New York: Columbia University Press.
THORNE, R. F. 1992. Classification and geography of the flowering plants. Botanical Review 58: 225-348.