| |
Syllabus
An examination
of the utilization of organic natural products by plants and animals for
various life processes. Examples will include how materials are utilized
for sexual selection, defense against predators, sexual attractants, natural
herbicides and repellants. Key questions such as physiological adaptation
to these materials and the adoption of them by humans for other purposes
will be examined. Subjects will range from poison (dendrobatid) frogs
to trail substances in social insects.
Unit
One: Introduction and Overview
- Objectives
- Why Chemical Ecology
- Synthetic Chemicals
vs Natural Products
- Remember Some Basic
Chemistry
- Terpenes
- Steroids
- Alkaloids
- Proteins and Nucleic
Acids
- Natural Products
- What we Obtain Directly From Nature
- Assignments
- Review
Unit
Two: Pheromones
- Objectives
- Introduction
- Bombykol - the
"first" pheromone
- How do pheromones
work
- The diversity of
pheromones
- Methods to detect
pheromonal activity
- Disparlure -The
Gypsy moth Attractant
- The Bark Beetle
- Strategies that
use pheromones to protect plants.
- Assignments
- Review
Unit
Three: Chemical Defense
- Objectives
- Chemical Defense:
Introduction
- Apheloria. The
Cyanide Bug
- The Bombardier
Beetle
- The Firefly
- The Puffer Fish
- The Dendrobatid
Frogs
- Review
- Assignments
Unit
Four: Sexual Selection
- Objectives
- Co-Evolution and
Chemical Defense
- Sexual Selection-Chemical
Defense in Utetheisa Ornatrix
- Cosmosoma myrodora:
Same Strategy, Different Procedure
- The Pyrrolizidine
Alkaloids
- The Monarch Butterfly
- Beetle Defense:
Cantharidin
- Review
- Assignments
Unit
Five: Plants Objectives
- Plant structure
and organization
- Comparison of plant
and humane immune systems
- Plant chemical
defenses: constitutive and induced
- Trophic levels:
"With a little help from my friends"
- Colors and fragrances:
signals for insects and other animals
- Review
- Assignments
Unit
Six: Microorganisms
- Objectives
- Antibiotics: penicillin,
erythromycin, and vancomycin use and misuse
- Immune supression:
cyclosporin
- Enzyme inhibitors:
lovastatin
- Mycotoxins; ergot
alkaloids and aflatoxins
- Genomics and the
manipulations of biosynthetic pathways: The new millennium
- Review
- Assoignments
Unit
Seven: Marine Natural Products
- Objectives
- Seaweed sex pheromones
- Chemical attractant
- Antifeedants
- Venoms and toxins:
cone shell polypeptides, the polyether toxins (ciguatoxin, brevetoxin,
and palytoxin), microcyctins from cyanobacteria
- Review
- Assignments
|
