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‘Energy and Evolution’ aims to show how changes in energy transduction drove many major evolutionary transitions that had a profound impact on life and Earth systems. The course aims to give an inspiring perspective that integrates genetics and bioenergetics as the basis of evolutionary and environmental change, and will appeal to students with backgrounds in biology and biochemistry as well as ecology and environmental sciences. Basic knowledge of biochemistry, chemistry, genetics and cell biology are required.

The module will cover major evolutionary transitions from a bioenergetic perspective. It will emphasize the impact of mechanistic innovations in bioenergetics on evolution and earth systems. The module will show how energetics necessarily underpinned the origin of life, and how the acquisition of new sources of energy (from water to oxygen) and new modes of genetic control (such as specialized bioenergetic genomes) enabled the evolution of innovations from photosynthesis and programmed cell death to eukaryotes, metazoans and endothermy.

The major learning outcome will be an understanding of how small changes in the mechanics of energy transduction can have major effects on the tempo and mode of evolution, by radically altering the constraints operating on natural selection. This will include the mechanistic basis of processes such as chemiosmotic coupling in respiration and photosynthesis, and how changes in substrates, control systems and allometric scaling alter both evolutionary potential and ecological feedbacks on a global scale. You will also learn to appreciate the importance of the interplay between genes and energy transduction in evolution, and the relevance of these factors beyond evolutionary genetics to medical and environmental sciences. Finally, you will assess and present evidence from a variety of sources through group presentations and essays on major events in Earth history that were potentially driven by biological or energetic shifts.

Learning objectives

• Understand how energy flow can shape the major transitions of evolution
• Frame the coevolution of life and the planet through the lens of energy and metabolism
• Connect processes as disparate as the origin of life, photosynthesis and ageing through the unifying thread of energy flow.

Indicative lecture topics – based on module content in 2022/23

• Introduction – Energetics and the Major Evolutionary Transitions
• Entropy, Enthalpy and Energy Flux
• Energetics at the Origin of Life
• The Last Universal Common Ancestor
• Origins of Cell Respiration
• Anoxygenic Photosynthesis and the Archaean World
• Oxygenic Photosynthesis – Water as ‘Fuel’
• Origin of the Eukaryotic Cell: Energy per Gene
• Mitochondria and Basal Eukaryotic Traits
• Geology and Biology – Reading the Precambrian Record
• Oxygen and Animals: The Cambrian Explosion
• Origin of Chloroplasts and the Rise of Eukaryotic Algae
• Origins of Programmed Cell Death
• Plant-Fungal Co-Colonization of the Land
• C3 Photosynthesis and Leaf Evolution
• Physiology and Evolution of C4 Photosynthesis
• The Power Laws of Biology
• Endothermy: Opportunity and Cost
• Lifespan, Energy Flux and Adaptation