General Biology II
Undergraduate · Biology
Syllabus focus
Topics typically covered
Standard syllabus
Evolution
- Evidence for evolution and deep time
- Natural selection, drift, gene flow, and mutation
- Speciation mechanisms and phylogenetics
- Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium applications
- Macroevolutionary patterns (intro)
- Tree thinking and shared derived characters
Diversity of life
- Domains and major eukaryotic lineages survey
- Prokaryotic diversity and ecological roles
- Fungi, plants, and animals: defining features
- Plant structure/reproduction overview
- Animal body plans and major phyla survey
- Viruses as biological entities (survey)
Ecology and organismal function
- Population ecology and life history
- Community interactions and succession
- Ecosystems: energy flow and nutrient cycles
- Behavioral ecology intro
- Animal physiology themes (homeostasis survey)
- Conservation biology and human impacts
STEM / applied
Field and lab practice
- Constructing and interpreting phylogenies from data
- Sampling designs for ecological field labs
- Diversity indices and simple stats (intro)
- Dissection or specimen identification (course-dependent)
- Using museum/herbarium digital resources
- Writing scientific arguments from ecological data
Applications
- Invasive species and restoration case studies
- Climate change impacts on biomes
- Public health links to ecology (vector-borne disease survey)
- Agriculture and plant physiology connections
- Communicating biodiversity value to non-majors
- Integrative Gen Bio II project or poster
Notes
Campus order of Gen Bio I/II topics varies (some put ecology earlier). Tutoring follows the local syllabus.