300059 UE Comparative Animal Regeneration (2026S)

Language of instruction: English

Aims:
Animal regeneration varies dramatically across the Metazoa. Some animals can rebuild complete bodies from small fragments, while others show only limited repair in specific tissues or life stages. This course introduces regeneration as a zoological and comparative problem: What kinds of regenerative outcomes exist across animal groups? What organismal, tissue-level, and cellular strategies enable them? How do regeneration, development, asexual reproduction, and dormancy intersect across the tree of life?

Students will work hands-on with live invertebrate regeneration models (cnidarians and flatworms) and learn how to document, stage, and compare regeneration outcomes. In paired mini-projects, students will design a small perturbation experiment, interpret their observations, and present results in a short scientific format.

Required kick-off meeting (mandatory)
To participate in this course, students must attend the kick-off meeting in the first week of the semester. The kick-off meeting covers course organization, safety instruction, and assignment of presentations and practical work.

Kick-off meeting: 04.03.2026, 15:00–16:30, SR 1.2
Students who cannot attend the kick-off meeting cannot be admitted to the course.

Contents:
The course combines short interactive lectures with practical laboratory work and student-led discussion. Emphasis is placed on comparative morphology and organismal patterning, while also introducing the major cellular strategies that differ among animal groups.

Key topics may include:
- Defining regeneration, repair, and remodeling; morphallaxis vs epimorphosis
- Comparative regeneration across major animal lineages and tissues
- Pattern formation and polarity during regeneration (axis re-establishment, positional information, scaling)
- Cellular strategies across taxa (resident stem cells, lineage restriction, dedifferentiation, transdifferentiation)
- Regeneration in relation to development, asexual reproduction, and dormancy (conceptual links and evolutionary framing)
- Practical skills in observation, staging, documentation, experimental design, and evidence-based interpretation

Practical work focuses on:
- Handling and maintaining live organisms during a short course
- Standard regeneration assays in a cnidarian (Hydra) and a flatworm (planarian)
- Structured observation and staging of regeneration over time using microscopy suited to the available equipment
- A paired mini-project that tests a simple, interpretable variable (for example fragment size, cut position, feeding status, or another low-logistics manipulation)
- Data recording, basic summarization, and presentation of evidence (figures or tables derived from scores, images when feasible, and clear descriptive observations)

Because this course involves living organisms and shared infrastructure, specific practical activities and model organisms may be adjusted depending on factors such as animal availability, facility constraints, and the pace of experiments. Any changes will be communicated as early as possible, and will not disadvantage students in assessment.

Learning Objectives:
After successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Describe major patterns of regenerative diversity across animal groups and tissues
- Compare organismal and cellular regeneration strategies across taxa, including strengths and limitations of different model systems
- Apply morphological staging and structured scoring to document regeneration outcomes over time
- Design a small comparative experiment with explicit variables, controls, and predictions
- Interpret primary literature by extracting the question, experimental logic, core evidence, and limitations
- Communicate results clearly in an oral scientific format, including a justified “next steps” proposal based on the observed outcomes