ZOOLOGY
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- CRISTIANO BERTOLUCCI
- Credits
- 9
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/05
Training objectives
- The course is the first teaching course in animal biology. The aim of the course consists in giving all basic information to understand relationships between anatomy and function in different animal taxa.
The most important notions will be:
General Zoology:
- basic knowledge of embryonic development
- body simmetries
- basic notion of taxonomy and classification
- basic knowledge of anatomy and organization in all most relevant animal taxa
The most relevant acquired abilities will be:
- using optic microscopy preparation in function of systematic classification of invertebrates; the identification of animal taxa by analyizing whole preparations of animals in formaldeyde bottles, anatomic reconstruction of several plastic models of invertebrates, in which different organs can be found, dismounted and mounted again in the proper positions.
- The ability of determining relationship between anatomical-functional organization and the ecological niche the taxon occupies. Prerequisites
- Basic information on animal biology.
Course programme
- The course consists of 72 hours of work, subdivided between lectures and practice.
Within the 64 hours of lectures the following topics will be presented and discussed:
The animal cell, mitosis and meiosis;
Embriology concept and detailed descriptions: different kinds of eggs, segmentation, blastula, gastrula, adult formation, body simmetries, metamerism;
Concepts of phylogeny, tassonomy and classification with examples in classical systematics and cladistics;
Asexual and sexual reproduction, concepts of gonochorism, ermaphroditism, partenogenesis, ginogenesis, sex determination diapause, hybernation;
Animal feeding: functional aspects and echological classification;
Locomotion, Respiration, Blood circulation, Osmoregulation and excretion, Thermoregulation, Nervous system and sense organs: morpho-functional comparative studies.
- Basic principles of animal behaviour. Mimicry and camouflage. Zoogeography.
Taxonomy and morpho-functional analysis of Porifera, Cnidaria, Platelmintes, Nemertines, Nematodes, Annelida, Molluscs, Arthropoda (particularly Chelicerates, Crustacea, Insecta), and Echinodermata.
During practice (8 hours) will be shown: optical microscopy preparations of sections of different taxa; bottles of formaline preparations of several taxa; plastical models of several taxa will be mounted and dismounted to localize the different organs; several videos reporting morphofunctional aspects of many different taxa.
Students will be also introduced to the modern molecular techniques for identification and classification of animal species. Finally, basic concepts of animal experimentation and animal breeding will be presented. Didactic methods
- Lectures will come together with slides concerning every topic of the zoology course. Practice will consist of inspection in the lab of the different taxa already shown during lectures. Students will be faced with whole preparations, transverse anatomical sections of several different taxa for optical microscopy. Furthermore many videos will be shown on different taxa, formalin bottle preparations and plastic models which can be mounted and dismounted to identify the different organs.
Learning assessment procedures
- The aim of the examination is to test the level of knowledge of the topics of the course. The evaluation is expressed in thirtieths (minimum grade 18, maximum grade 30 cum laude).
Examination is written and consists of multiple choices questionnaire (40 questions)
To get through the examination, the student need to answer correctly at least 24 questions. To obtain the maximum score (30/30) the student need to answer correctly at least 39 questions (40 correctly questions to obtain 30 cum laude/30).
Students will have a maximum of 40 minutes to answer to all questions.
To cope with the COVID-19 emergency and limit any inconvenience to the students, the exams could take place in a different way than described above. Reference texts
- ZOOLOGIA Hickman et al.
18th ed.
McGraw-Hill
FONDAMENTI DI ZOOLOGIA
Hickman et al.
18th ed.
McGraw-Hill
DIVERSITA' ANIMALE
Hickman et al.
18th ed.
McGraw-Hill
ATLANTE DI DIVERSITA' E MORFOLOGIA DEGLI INVERTEBRATI Bruno Sabelli ed. Piccin
Lecture slides
