Phylogeny – Classification and Assessing Relatedness

Supplementary Information to use with the Plant & Vertebrate Biodiversity Scavenger Hunt Assignment.

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To learn about Plant and Vertebrate groups, you will be going on a scavenger hunt to find organisms in each of the indicated groups and taking pictures to document what you find and listing 2 key/defining Characters for that group. 

After submitting your scavenger hunt in Moodle, complete the Moodle Plants and Vertebrates Assessment (quiz).

• Before you start your Scavenger Hunt, you will need to become familiar with each Plant and Vertebrate group AND the Characters used to group them.  Maybe we provide PDF for these pages... chapter not included in digital lab manual. Review the basic groups of Key Plants Characters and Key Vertebrate Characters, and view the Supporting Information below to help you fill out the characters of major plant and vertebrate groups when you come to lab.
• Fieldwork Safety Guidelines
• Scavenger Hunt Collection: Find 1 example for each of the Plant and Vertebrate phyla listed below/on the assignment sheet. Use your cell phone to take a picture of each organism you find and save it as a jpg or PDF (iPhone users change your camera formats setting to Most Compatible) for this assignment). These should be pictures you take from nature (outdoors) and/or indoors, science museum, zoo, pet/aquarium stores, grocery stores.... but should not be pictures you have taken off the web, not even our lab website.  Pictures from the web will not count unless they are from our VR Ecosystems (see below).  Some phyla may be hard to find.  
• Are you unable to go outside? Go on a virtual field trip to visit virtual reality (VR) ecosystems. You will need to choose to look at the Forest Ecology Ecosystem or the Coastal Ecosystem. Find as many organisms as you can and take screen shots of what you find. Follow the rest of the assignment instructions.  If using screen shots from from these VR ecosystems, be sure to label each screen shot with the Ecosystem name and the "node" where the organism was found.  Not labeling your source implies it it your own work!  Other internet website pictures will not be graded.
• If you use the Forest VR Ecosystem, BIO 181 lab students do not need to complete Activity Page Part I and II below the VR interactive (where you found the organisms).  Just use the interactive to find your groups.
• Include your pictures in the template provided in the Lab Handout.  Be sure to include your rationale by providing 2 Key/defining characters from the Plant or Vertebrate Groups that led you to the group identification. 

Supporting Information When Examining Plants and Vertebrates

Explanation of Key Plant Characters and Examples Below:

A Comparison between Vascular vs. Non-Vascular Plants

Vascular Plants	Non-Vascular Plants
True conducting tissues, leaves, stems, and roots to help the fertilization process. Water and solutes move through special cells called xylem. Sugar is transported by special cells called phloem. Plant parts can be distant from water source. Grow to large heights.	Require water for fertilization so they must grow in moist habitats. Water movement is by osmosis. Solutes move by diffusion. All plant parts must be near water source. Small growing.

Reproductive Strategies in Plants

Plants reproduce by producing multicellular haploid (N) and multicellular diploid (2N) body forms or generations.  The haploid generation is called a gametophyte that will make gametes by mitotic cell division.  The gametophyte generation will give rise to the diploid generation which is called the sporophyte.  The sporophyte in turn produces spores, by meiosis, that will grow by mitosis to give rise to the next gametophyte (N) generation.

Plant Life Cycle Diagrams:

• General concept of Alternation of Generations
• For all Plant Groups view them here.

View video links below to see male gametes of mosses and ferns:

• View the MOSS male gamete movie and the FERN male gamete movie - For moss, the short movie (00:13-00:19) shows male gamete release, later it shows animal assisted fertilization).

  Other Life Cycles: step by step, with or without narration.

• Life Cycle of Mosses
• Life Cycle of Ferns
• Life Cycle of a Gymnosperm
• Life cycle of an Angiosperm: (click on the image)
  

Diversity in Plant Transport Tissues among the 5 Plant Groups - click to view

The Tree of Life Project: The Land Plants (Embryophytes) - more in depth material

Major Plant Groups* - test yourself!

Images not to be used in your scavenger hunt.

Which group do each of these belong in? - (Charophytes, Bryophytes, Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms)

A.	B.	C.
D.	E.	F.

The Vertebrates

Explanation of Key Vertebrate Characters and Examples Below: look closely at provided images and links within provided websites.

• Variation in Reproduction and skin covering - egg or live birth? Are there exceptions?
• The Amniotes - you may need to use Safari or Firefox to see images and other links not seen in Chrome.
• Amniote vertebrate skull types and examples - anapsid, synapsid, diapsid
• Diversity in Vertebrate Hearts - Launch Interactive, then click on a representative animal to view the systemic circulations of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.  Then also view the heart details that you can activate to see the number of heart chambers and how they contract and relax.

Introduction to Vertebrates - you may need to use Safari or Firefox to see images and other links not seen in Chrome.

The Tree of Life Project: The Vertebrates - more in-depth material (website is currently down)

Major Vertebrate Groups* - test yourself!

Images not to be used in your scavenger hunt.

To which Class or subgroup do each of these belong? (Amphibia, Mammalia, Reptilia - subgroups Crocodilians, Turtles, Lizards & Snakes, Birds/Aves)

1.	2.	3.	4.	5.
6.	7.	8.	9.	10.
11.	12.	13.	14.	15.

Post-Lab

Activities not done Fall 2026 - but information you might find interesting! Disregard any reference to Tables and page numbers. This Unit is not provided as a Lab Handout.

Activities One and Two: Determining Relatedness Among Major Plant Groups (p. 88-97) and Vertebrate Groups (p. 97-108).  Not done in lab for Fall 2026.

• Test your familiarity of the Major Plant* and Vertebrate* groups by trying to put the plants and vertebrate organisms pictured below in their appropriate groups. 
• Working with your groups: 

1. Complete Table 6-2 and come to a consensus for each of the Plant Characters in Table 6-2. Fill in Table 6-2 in your lab manual AND then later as a group in the template provided in the Google Drive lab folder by your TA.
2. As a group, complete Activity One #2 to make a cladogram for the plants. You will use the Table 6-2 that you have filled out as a group to complete this cladogram. Be sure to label the outgroup, ingroups, shared primitive, and derived characters appropriately on your cladogram (see Figure 6-1 as an example, though replace the name of the organism with the group name). Record your cladogram on page 89, scan it and upload it to the template. 
3. Compile a group collection of pictures of the organisms found in your Pre-Lab scavenger hunt:
   1. Since you have already agreed on Table 6-2, start with the plant groups listed on the table. Organize the pictures you took by plant group and insert into your Google doc template.
   2. Help each other ID any unknown organisms and see that they are placed in the appropriate group.
4. Proceed to the Vertebrate groups, and come to a consensus for each of the Characters listed on Table 6-3. Fill in Table 6-3 as a group in your lab manual AND in the template. Organize the pictures you took by Vertebrate group and insert into your template. Help each other ID any unknown organisms and see that they are placed in the appropriate group.
   NOTE: You will be completing an individual cladogram for the vertebrate groups as part of your individual Post-Lab assignment.
5. Will you be the group with the most correctly identified organisms?

• At the end of lab, your group will upload to Moodle all of the work completed in the provided template. Not done Fall 23 

As homework: (not done Fall 2026)

• Working on your own, construct a cladogram for the Vertebrate groups in Table 6-3 page 99.  You can draw your cladogram on page 98 of your lab manual.  Be sure to name of all groups, label the outgroup, ingroup, shared primitive character, derived characters (as seen in Figure 6-1).  
• Complete Activity Three (p. 108-112).  Fill in Table 6-4 Features of Land Vertebrates Compared to Select Extinct Species on page 112.  Most of this table is filled out for you. 
• View video - Great Transitions: The Origin of Birds (video transcript)
• Answer the questions in the Post-lab Assignment.

Are Birds Living Dinosaurs?

Activity Three: p. 108-112. Not done in lab for Fall 2026.

Below is a cast of Archaeopteryx.  Compare the bone structure seen in Figure 6-11 of the reptile and bird in your lab manual to what you can see below.  Figure 6-11 in you lab manual is a more faded picture of the image seen below.

T. Rex Might be a Thing with Feathers

Additional Information

Dinosaurs' Living Descendants

What Jurassic Park Got Wrong About Raptors (2:58) - this discusses how birds are like raptors. (link not currently working)

Why did Ferns Persist When All Other Plants Perished? - Fern population explosion seen following mass extinction that ended the Cretaceous period.