1. An Investigative Case-Based Approach to Phylogenetic Analysis Educational tools to engage undergraduate students in phylogenetic analyses of microbial communities. Use 16S rDNA sequence analysis. A variety of case settings related to Microbial Ecology. Rafael Tosado-Acevedo & Filipa Godoy-Vitorino Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Metropolitan Campus

2. Investigative Cases Host-microbe relationships in the gut microbiome. La Chenchena (Hoatzin), a ruminant bird Commensal relationships between plants and microbes in the soil. Rhizosphere microbes and legumes.

3. Use of Freely Available Web-Based Tools and Databases To obtain the necessary sequence data from soil and animal gut microbiomes, and for building and analyzing phylogenic trees. NCBI Greengenes SILVA Phylogeny.fr QIIME

4. Activities Students obtain sequences from different databases, align them, perform quality control for their alignments, perform phylogenies under different models of evolution and interpret their data. With large 16S rDNA datasets students have a first contact with high-throughput sequence analyses. Analyses of alpha and beta diversity.

5. www.caseitproject.org