Dear Aspirant,
This option is mostly chosen by students who are pursuing Life Sciences and want to pursue UPSC. Zoology as a subject has a lot of potential as a paper, if you have a background and is a really good choice as it is a science paper. It like any other paper, requires hard work and sincere practice. The success rate in 2015 for people who chose to take it as an optional was 6.9% and though not popular, even the toppers of the exams have often secured with this great scores in Zoology.
There are two optional papers each of 250 marks, making a total of 500 marks for the optional.
Here is the syllabus:
Paper 1-
1) Non-chordata and Chordata
(a) Classification and relationship of various phyla up to subclasses
(b) Protozoa
(c) Porifera
(d) Cnidaria
(e) Platyhelminthes
(f) Nemathelminthes
(g) Annelida
(h) Arthropoda
(i) Molluscs
(j) Echinodermata
(k) Protochordata
(l) Pisces
(m) Amphibia
(n) Reptilia
(o) Aves
(p) Mammalia
(q) Comparative functional anatomy of various systems of vertebrates. (integument and its derivatives, endoskeleton, locomotory organs, digestive system,. respiratory system, circulatory system including heart and aortic arches, urinogenital system, brain and sense organs (eye and ear)
2) Ecology
(a) Biosphere
(b) Concept of ecosystem
(c) Population
(d) Biodiversity and diversity conservation of natural resources.
(e) Wildlife of India.
(f) Remote sensing for sustainable development.
(g) Environmental biodegradation; pollution and its impact on biosphere and its prevention.
3) Ethology
(a) Behaviour
(b) Role of hormones in drive; role of pheromones in alarm spreading; crypsis, predator detection, predator tactics, social hierarchies in primates, social organization in insects;
(c) Orientation, navigation, homing; biological rhythms
(d) Methods of studying animal behaviour including sexual conflict, selfishness, kinship and altruism.
4) Economic Zoology
(a) Apiculture, sericulture, lac culture, carp culture, pearl culture, prawn culture, vermiculture.
(b) Major infectious and communicable diseases (malaria, filaria, tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS) their vectors, pathogens and prevention.
(c) Cattle and livestock diseases, their pathogen (helminths) and vectors (ticks, mites, Tabanus, Stomoxys).
(d) Pests of sugar cane (Pyrilla perpusiella), oil seed (Achaeajanata) and rice(Sitophilus oryzae).
(e) Transgenic animals.
(f) Medical biotechnology, human genetic disease and genetic counselling, gene therapy.
(g) Forensic biotechnology.
5) Biostatistics
Designing of experiments; null hypothesis; correlation, regression, distribution and measure of central tendency, chi square, student-test, F-test (one-way & two-way F-test).
6) Instrumentation methods
(a) Spectrophotometer, phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy, radioactive tracer, ultra centrifuge, gel . electrophoresis, PCR, ELISA, FISH and chromosome painting.
(b) Electron microscopy (TEM, SEM).
For this paper make sure that all the theories of chordata and non-chordata sections are done. In the subsection, chordate description, the phyla should be compared anatomically and phylogenetically. The scoring topics are- economic zoology, bio instrumentation and bio statistics as they are smaller and the questions asked for them are predictable. So pay attention to these. Also, in economic zoology, focus on the developments of India.
Paper 2
1. Cell Biology
2. Genetics
3. Evolution
4. Systematics
5. Biochemistry
6. Physiology (with special reference to mammals)
7. Developmental Biology
Some tips for this paper:
Here are some more books for you from which you can prepare-
Hope this helps. All the best!
Regular exam updates, QnA, Predictors, College Applications & E-books now on your Mobile