I did a systematics lab in my Plant Morphology class last year that seemed
to work out well. I used a number of different fern species, since I have
a number of species available in a greenhouse collection, but the same
approach could be taken with any group of related organisms, plant or
animal. We began with a description of some of the easily observable
characteristics of ferns - simple, pinnate, or bipinnate fronds; shape and
placement of sori; type of indusium; scaly vs. smooth rhizomes; etc. The
students then looked at the species available and chose some characters
they thought could be used to distinguish amongst the species. Once they
had agreed on a set of characters to use they carried out a phenetic
analysis and a cladistic analysis of the group. For the cladistic
analysis they also had to choose which features they would assume were
primitive and which derived. I let different lab groups make these
decisions individually. After they had completed their analyses, the
different groups compared their results - giving them a chance to see how
different systematists might come up with different results, based on
their early choices of characters, etc. The discussion was pretty
interesting.
Just thought I'd add my two cents.
*********************************************************************
Kathleen Brunkard, Ph.D.
Biological Sciences Department
East Stroudsburg University
East Stroudsburg, PA 18301
Phone: 717-422-3705
Fax: 717-422-3724
E-mail: brunkard at esu.edu
********************************************************************
