Biodiversity and Evolutionary Trees

In this activity, students use DNA sequences from marine mollusks to construct phylogenetic trees. This activity uses mollusks as model organisms to introduce phylogeny and the importance of evolutionary relationships in modern taxonomy.

In Part 1, students learn how DNA can be used to study evolutionary relationships. Part 2 introduces an online software (MAFFT) for generating DNA sequence alignments and phylogenetic trees. In Parts 3 and 4, students build and explore phylogenetic trees of different mollusks. In the optional inquiry-based extension, students apply the techniques they’ve learned to explore evolutionary relationships among species of their choosing.

This activity was designed to accompany the Click & Learn Sorting Seashells, in which students construct an evolutionary tree of the same mollusk species based on morphological characteristics.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.