Class Text

There is no required text for Plant Evolutionary Biology. Readings draw from multiple sources and primary literature. Additional materials are made available on the class website as needed. My preference is to reduce financial barriers where possible, but I am also transparent about the source of course content below.

Every book on this page is optional. The only required readings are the journal articles listed under Assigned Readings below, all of which are free to you through NC State University Libraries or posted on Moodle.

The closest thing to a text is Plant Evolution by Karl Niklas. A brief glance will reveal that I use a lot of material in the early evolution section and that the class roughly follows the ordering of major themes. The class and the book Plant Evolution both move from the smallest units of evolution (populations) to the largest (ecosystems). Our class has a narrower but deeper focus on a subset of topics rather than covering Plant Evolution from cover to cover. This is in part due to our emphasis on genomic data and on building practical skills for research with such data. You will find that I take many liberties on the macroevolutionary section too. I also skip some topics in plant physiology and gene expression networks to make space for primary literature and in-class project activities. My recommendation is that a student does not need this text to get the most from the class. Graduate students looking to develop research or teaching careers in evolutionary biology might consider adding it to their personal library. The Libraries should have copies available if you are interested.

  • Niklas K. 2016. Plant Evolution: An Introduction to the History of Life. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, IL.

I utilize other sources throughout the course as well. None encompasses the course content end to end, but each provides a basis for different elements and activities.

  • Simpson MG. 2019. Plant Systematics. 3rd Edition. Academic Press. London, UK.
  • Judd WS et al. 2015. Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. 4th Edition. Sinauer Associates. Sunderland, MA.
  • Charlesworth B & Charlesworth D. 2010. Elements of Evolutionary Genetics. Roberts and Company Publishers. Greenwood Village, CO.
  • Yang Z. 2014. Molecular Evolution: A Statistical Approach. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK.

All of these books are available in the Tiley lab for short loans if helpful. I am working on ensuring the library has copies too. They provide more organismal, population-genetic, and phylogenetic perspectives, respectively.

Assigned Readings

These are the required journal articles for the course. Each is tied to a specific class meeting on the schedule page. PDFs are posted on Moodle; all are also available through NC State University Libraries at no cost.

  • de Queiroz K. 2007. Species concepts and species delimitation. Systematic Biology 56(6): 879–886. (Assigned 24 September)
  • Rivera-Rodríguez DM et al. 2023. PLoS ONE 18: e0291944. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0291944 (Discussion, 3 September)
  • Dauphin B et al. 2020. Disentangling the effects of geographic peripherality and habitat suitability on neutral and adaptive genetic variation in Swiss stone pine. Molecular Ecology 29(11): 1972–1989. (Discussion, 17 September)
  • Mayo SJ. 2022. Plant taxonomic species and their role in the workflow of integrative species delimitation. Kew Bulletin 77: 1–26. (Assigned 6 October)
  • Zhao Y et al. 2021. Nuclear phylotranscriptomics and phylogenomics support numerous polyploidization events and hypotheses for the evolution of rhizobial nitrogen-fixing symbiosis in Fabaceae. Molecular Plant 14(5): 748–773. (Discussion, 5 November)
  • Tang H et al. 2008. Synteny and collinearity in plant genomes. Science 320(5875): 486–488. (Assigned 10 November)
  • Pérez-Escobar OA et al. 2017. Multiple geographical origins of environmental sex determination enhanced the diversification of Darwin’s favourite orchids. Scientific Reports 7. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-12300-y (Discussion, 24 November)

Three lecture days list readings that are instructor-prepared notes rather than published articles: Poisson processes (20 August), estimating genetic diversity (25 August), and the site frequency spectrum (8 September). These are posted on Moodle.