Part I - Thinking about evolution by taking development on board
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2009
Summary
What is evo-devo? Undoubtedly this is a shorthand for evolutionary developmental biology. There, however, agreement stops. Evo-devo has been regarded as either a new discipline within evolutionary biology or simply a new perspective upon it, a lively interdisciplinary field of studies, or even necessary complement to the standard (neo-Darwinian) theory of evolution, which is an obligate step towards an expanded New Synthesis. Whatever the exact nature of evo-devo, its core is a view of the process of evolution in which evolutionary change is the transformation of (developmental) processes rather than (genetic or phenotypic) patterns. Thus our original question could be more profitably rephrased as: What is evo-devo for? This section contributes many-faceted insights into the identity and scope of evo-devo.
According to Gerd Müller (Chapter 1), evo-devo is a discipline in its own right, because it asks a specific set of questions, solves biological problems that could not be solved by other approaches, and affects our understanding of evolutionary theory. After a short reflection on evo-devo history, the chapter examines in detail a set of evo-devo big questions. All these have at their core two interrelated components, namely how evolution affects development, and how the properties of developmental systems affect the course of evolution. Finally the author considers current evo-devo research programs, and discusses the impact of evo-devo on the theory of evolution.
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- Evolving PathwaysKey Themes in Evolutionary Developmental Biology, pp. 1 - 4Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008