Introduction To The Process Of Biological Evolution

Understand natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, recombination, speciation and other concepts of evolution

What you'll learn

Fundamentals of genetics

The mechanisms of evolution

An overview of speciation

How evolution can be used as a computer algorithm

Requirements

Basic knowledge of biology

Description

Evolution is one of the main controversial topics in biology, and also one of the most fascinating phenomena in nature! This course is an introduction to evolutionary biology and the evolutionary process. In this introductory course, you will know  the genetic basis of evolution: the nature of the genetic information; the main mechanisms of evolution, such as natural selection, crossing over and mutation; An overview of the process of speciation, and finally: how some computer algorithms can be inspired in the evolution of populations to solve hard combinatorial problems!The course is divided into three main sections:1- The fundamentals: In this section, we have an overview of the process of evolution, and why it is different from metamorphosis. You'll also learn concepts of genetics2- The mechanisms: In this section, are presented the main mechanisms of evolution, such as natural selection, mutation, crossing over, and genetic drift3- The extra section: Here, there are two lectures: in the first one, we will use a bioinformatic toool to search for similar genetic sequences. In the second class, we will explore the idea of genetic algorithms and how evolution inspires computer optimization algorthmsSo, if you are interested in the theory behind the evolutionary process, or you simply want to know how evolution can be seen as an algorithm, this course is for you!

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Course overview

Lecture 2 Intro to section 01

Lecture 3 Introduction to biological evolution

Lecture 4 Fundamentals of genetics: part 1

Lecture 5 Fundamentals of genetics: part 2

Lecture 6 Fundamentals of genetics: part 3

Lecture 7 Fundamentals of genetics: part 4

Lecture 8 Fundamentals of genetics: part 5

Lecture 9 Fundamentals of ecology

Section 2: Understanding the mechanisms of evolution

Lecture 10 Intro to section 02

Lecture 11 Natural selection

Lecture 12 Genetic drift

Lecture 13 Mutations - part 1

Lecture 14 Mutations - part 2

Lecture 15 Mutations - part 3

Lecture 16 Crossing-over/recombination

Lecture 17 Speciation

Section 3: Extra section

Lecture 18 Intro to section 3

Lecture 19 Comparing evolutionary similar sequences with BLAST

Lecture 20 Biological evolution as a computer algorithm - part 1

Lecture 21 Biological evolution as a computer algorithm - part 2

Lecture 22 Bonus lecture

Students of biology,Biologists,Biotechnologists,People interested in the subject