• Read the  White Paper executive summary discussing the importance of evolutionary biology (the really brave can read the entire document:  White Paper on evolutionary biology ).  Then think about initiatives to prevent or dilute the teaching of evolution in public schools.  What potential impacts could such initiatives have in the long term?
•  CDC-NCHSTP-Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) Home Page is a great place to begin looking for information about the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  See especially CDC - Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention - Basic Statistics and CDC - HIV/AIDS Slides/Graphics: AIDS Surveillance - Trends - L207 slide series (through 1999) . 
•  UNAIDS: The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS is an excellent resource for a global perspective on HIV/AIDS.  Resources include the UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS fact sheets, June 2001 

• Just for fun, get an appreciation for the variation present in a variety of domestic organisms by checking out the photos of  The American Rose Society ;  Breeds of Livestock - Oklahoma State University ; and  The American Kennel Club .
• Read a more detailed discussion of the ring species Ensatina escholtzii at  the  Ensatina home page .
• Read the debate about evolution between Phillip Johnson (lawyer, creationist and author of Darwin on Trial) and Philip Kitcher (philosopher and author of the creationist critique Abusing Science) about whether or not evolution (and creationism) should be taught in public schools on Slate magazine's forum  Should Evolution Be Taught in Schools? by Phillip E. Johnson and Philip Kitcher . 
• Don't forget the resources on the history and philosophy of evolutionary thought on the course home page.

• To get a feel for the power of natural selection, check out the on-line simulations listed on the course home page.
• Read what Darwin had to say about the Galapagos in  Charles Darwin: The Voyage Of The Beagle: Chapter 17: Galapagos Archipelago .
• Learn more about the Galapagos archipelago from Scientific American Frontiers at   PBS - The Voyage of the Odyssey .

• Review DNA structure at  A Science Odyssey: You Try It: DNA Workshop and  DNA Structure. 
• Review DNA function at  Central Dogma Directory and Mendelian genetics at  Mendelian Genetics Chapter -- both chapters from MIT's on-line biology hypertextbook.

• Learn more about sickle cell disease at  Sickle Cell Information Center Home Page and cystic fribrosis at  The Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Center at Stanford .
• Read a description of mouth structure and feeding variations in cichlid fishes at  The Cichlid Room Companion - Cichlids And Science: That Amazing Mouth .

• Several sites offer models of genetic drift.   Genetic Drift Simulation is a pencil-and-paper simulation from the University of Arizona, good for teachers.   Genetic Drift , from the University of Connecticut, lets you plug in allele frequencies and population size and graphs the results.  Jon Herron has developed some excellent simulations of drift and other processes.  Download the AlleleA1 software and exercises and enjoy.
• The effects of small populations on extinction risk are of major interest to conservation biologists.   Introduction - ALEX introduces you to some of the simulation software used to assess extinction risk based on a variety of ecological parameters using an approach called Population Viability Analysis.
• The Florida Panther is a classic example of the effects of small population size on inbreeding and inbreeding depression.  Read a good review at  the Florida Panather Net site (check out the link to "Threats").
• The  Conservation Breeding Specialist Group , a division of the IUCN, is an international conservation organization whose mission is "to assist conservation of threatened animal and plant species through scientific management of small populations in wild habitats, with linkage to captive populations where needed."  This site offers some interesting information on how that's done.

• Many folks have critiqued The Bell Curve since its publication in 1994. Some good resources are   Bell Curve , a review article by Arthur S. Goldberger and Charles F. Manski from the Department of Economics 

 at The University of Wisconsin-Madison ;  The Bell Curve Flattened - Subsequent research has seriously undercut the claims of the controversial best seller. by Nicholas Lemann from Slate magazine and  BELL CURVE: Anatomy of an Analysis by Claudia Krenz , a statistician who has re-analyzed the data from the book. 
• Heritability is an important concept in animal breeding.  Read Heritability by John Pollack, Ph.D., Cornell University and  G2910 Heritability and Its Use in Animal Breeding by John W. Massey and Dale W. Vogt, Department of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia for more information.
•  Evolution of Polymorphisms in seedcrackers describes ongoing research on these birds, along with a bibliography and some great photos, by the folks at the Center for Tropical Studies at The University of California, San Francisco.
•  NNZ - Goldenrod Gall Fly is a neat short article on gall flies.  From its contents, you should be able to develop some good hypotheses for the causes of stabilizing selection in this critter.  Teachers should check out  Lab 6 - Gall Size , from Jonathan Brown, Ph.D., at Grinnell College for a good lab exercise.
• If you're interested in the study of genetic linkage (especially as it applies to the study of human genetics and genetic disease), check out genetic linkage analysis , the home page of the Laboratory of Satistical Genetics at Rockefeller University 

• The strength of natural selection and the role of constraints, trade-offs, and historical contingency have been the subject of debate among evolutionary biologists since the late 1970's.  Two major players in this debate have been Richard Dawkins (arguing on the side of the pre-eminence of natural selection) and Stephen J. Gould (arguing on the side of important limits to selection in the forms of constraint and contingency). Read Stephen J. Gould’s original argument from his classic paper  “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm” at An adaptationist programme  , a site hosted by the America Academy for the Advancement of Science.  Then read some of their ongoing debates at  The "G-Files" from John Catalano’s excellent website and follow up with Presidential Lectures: Stephen Jay Gould: Commentary: Thurtle , a discussion of their ongoing disagreement by Phillip Stevens Thurtle of Stanford University.
• DesertUSA 2000 is an on-line magazine about US Deserts features good discussions of the adaptations of plants and animals to survival in arid environments.  Bearing in mind that the statement that a trait is an adaptation is really a hypothesis, how would you test the hypotheses presented in this articles?
• Department of Plant Population Biology: NIOO-Centre of Terrestrial Ecology: research program and themes presents summaries of ongoing research on phenotypic plasticity in plants.  Some of the descriptions include results of preliminary studies; see if you can make predictions about the outcomes of the future studies as described on the site.
• CAIC Homepage is the website for the software package Comparative Analysis by Independent Contrasts, developed by Andy Purvis and Andrew Rambau to calculate phylogenetically independent contrasts for comparative studies.

• Sexual selection and the evolution of mating systems are major research topics at a number of institutions.  Read descriptions of current research projects from The Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Jrvaskyla; Dr. Frederick Widemo at the Department of Animal Ecology,  Evolutionary Biology Centre in Upsala; and Dr. Matt Persons at Susquehana University .  Each of these pages provides background and theory as well as information about the study organisms; see if you can use this information to devise methods for testing the hypotheses of interest to the researchers.
• Males’ seeming handicaps advertise a suitor’s worth , an article from US News describes the “handicapped male” hypothesis, developed by Amotz Zahavi in the mid 1970's.  How does this hypothesis fit into the breakdown of hypotheses for female choice presented in the text?  Another hypothesis, presented as an alternative to the “good genes” hypotheses is described at A New Look at Darwinian Sexual Selection ; is this hypothesis really novel?
• Population density, social pathology, and behavioral ecology

By Jim Moore from the Anthropology Department at The University of California, San Diego, this article from the journal Primates presents an alternative to the sexual selection hypothesis for male infanticide in two species of mammals. 
• Nat'l Academy Press, Biodiversity II: (1996), 18 Comparative Behavioral and Biochemical Studies of Bowerbirds and the Evolution of Bower-Building . This is a review article by Dr. Gerald Borgia from the Department of Biology, University of Maryland, on the evolution of a novel type of male ornamentation – decorated bowers built by male bowerbirds of Australia. 

• For related links, visit the Prentice-Hall list at  Evolutionary Analysis Chapter 10 -- Destinations 

• What is a Species, and What is Not? In this paper from the journal The Philosophy of Science, Mayr explains the biological species concept in the context of the larger question of whether or not species exist in nature.  He also offers his critique of alternative species concepts, including the typological (morphological), evolutionary, and phylogenetic species concepts. 
• At this site, Jeff Groth of the Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History discusses species concepts in the context of a specific research question about the specific status of crossbills. Crossbill Natural History  is a good place to start your review.
• Learn more about red wolves at  Red wolf, Canis rufus, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and play with on-line mapping of a population in Algonquin State Park at  Red Wolves / Database .
• Observed Instances of Speciation From the Talk.Origins archive, this paper discusses different species concepts and processes of speciation, and provides an overview (with references) of instances in which speciation has been observed, either in the field or in laboratory populations.  Its “sister page”, Some More Observed Speciation Events  provides additional references.
• The Union of Concerned Scientists is an organization of scientists engaged in a variety of political issues with a strong basis in science.  One issue of major concern is the potential consequences of new uses of biotechnology, including the use of genetically engineered crop plants.  For a good overview of the potential problems, check out their Biotechnology - UCS page.

•  KISAC Bioinformatics in Sweden provides an excellent overview of the process of inferring phylogeny from molecular sequence data, with reference to the various computer programs available for use.
• HIV Database: phylogenetic tree tutorial is a step-by-step tutorial for inferring phylogeny from molecular data, provided by the HIV Sequence Database project of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  From the tutorial, you can also link to HIV Sequence Database: Neighbor TreeMaker Submission Form, an interactive interface that provides trees based on sequences you input.
• Journey into the World of Cladistics is part of the University of California, Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology website; it's a good, moderately technical discussion of the process of cladistic analysis.
• Joseph Felsenstein’s PHYLIP is a very popular set of computer programs for inferring phylogeny.  Dr. Felsenstein also provides Phylogeny Programs , a page with links to a wealth of other phylogeny programs.
• Read more about fungus-farming ants and their evolution in a number of on-line articles, including   News in Science 6/7/1999 Fungus-farming ants battle parasites;  Nature Science Update ; Behavior of fungus growing ants ; and A Farming Ant and Its Fungus   Visit the Chapela Lab Home Page  for a close-up look at one of the groups investigating this phenomenon.

• The Tree of Life Home Page is a collection of over 1630 World Wide Web pages containing information about the diversity of life. Start with The Tree of Life Project Root Page  to explore the Archaea and other early forms of life.
• UCMP Home Page The University of California, Berkeley’s Museum of Paleontology website has a wealth of resources, including several related to the origin of life.  See Origin of Cellular Life,  an on-line copy of HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN? THE SELF-ASSEMBLY OF ORGANIC MOLECULES AND THE ORIGIN OF CELLULAR LIFE by David W. Deamer.  The Precambrian  provides links to pages with information about the characteristics of the early Earth, and Life on Earth  anchors pages on life forms ancient and modern.
• EXOBIOLOGY: An Interview with Stanley L. Miller  is just what it says; Awramik: Narrative Index  is a good place to begin reading Dr. Awramik’s article “Astrobiology and the Origins of Life”. 
• Center for Frontier Sciences - Lynn Margulis This page, housed at Temple University, provides links to a number of resources about the work of Lynn Margulis, who developed the endosymbiotic theory for the origin of eukaryotes.

Exobiology Strategy Report This is an interesting NASA document explaining the strategies used to explore the possibility of life on Mars.

Ediacaran Fossils of Canada This site, from the Miller Museum of Geology, Queen's University, Canada, describes the significance of the Ediacaran fauna and provides pictures of representative fossils. 

Burgess Shale fossils Andrew MacRae, at the University of Calgary, provides descriptions of the Burgess Shale site as well as pictures of a variety of its fossils and links to additional information.

The Cambrian Period This page gives an overview of the Cambrian Period and provides links to more information on its stratigraphy, tectonics, early life, and more.  From Science Daily magazine, read Large Gene Study Questions Cambrian Explosion , an article describing the molecular evidence challenging the timing of the Cambrian Explosion.

Punctuated Equilibrium at Twenty Dr. Donald Prothero reviews the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium in this article from the journal Skeptic.

BBC Evolution Weekend: Extinction Files - Mass Extinctions

Part of the BBC's excellent evolution web site, this page links you to summary information about each of the "Big Five" mass extinction events. The Great Mystery: Background  from UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology discusses the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. 

IUCN - The World Conservation Union The World Conservation Union website offers a huge variety of information about biodiversity conservation, including a searchable on-line version of the Red Book of sensitive, threatened and endangered species. 

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

This site provides information about the state of important global resources.  Look at FAO - Forestry - Home Page  for data on the world's forests. 

Center for Biodiversity and ConservationThe American Museum of Natural History offers this on-line version of Humans and Other Catastrophes: Perspectives on Extinction, a report on the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation's 1997 symposium at AMNH. Written by conservationist and author Curt Meine, the report gives an overview of extinction episodes, including the current "Sixth Extinction," the almost certain human causation of recent extinctions, and some possible conservation strategies for the future. For more information on anthropogenic extinctions, see the list of news releases and other resources provided by David Ulansey at Mass Extinction Underway 

• The web offers a wealth of sites with information related to human evolution.  One of the most comprehensive lists of sites (including links to images of hominid fossils) are Jim Foley’s Fossil Hominids: the evidence for human evolution . 
•  Becoming Human: Paleoanthropology, Evolution and Human Origins is an awesome site that includes an on-line documentary of human evolution and interactive exhibits that allow users to explore everything from basic evolutionary theory to profiles of the members of the hominid family tree.  It requires a fast connection, but is well worth the visit.
• Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution in China is from Dennis Etler at UC Berkeley and  focuses specifically on human evolution in China, with links to a variety of resources including fossil images and research publications.  One of these is The African Emergence and Early Asian Dispersals of the Genus Homo, an on-line version of an American Scientist article by Roy Larick and Russell L. Ciochon that addresses, among other things, the African emergence and multiregional hypotheses.
• Forensic Anthropology is part of the Osteointeractive web site, a fantastic resource for learning about osteology, one of the underpinnings of paleoanthropology.  The site includes information on human osteology, paleopathology, and histology as well as forensic anthropology.
• Handprint : Ancestral Lines is a non-technical but good site that brings together information about the hominid fossil record, tools and tool use, dispersal routes, and more in an attractive, accessible format. 
• Language Acquisition This book chapter by Steven Pinker discusses some of his ideas about the evolution of language.