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Evolutionary Innovations and Developmental Resources: From Stability to Variation and Back Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

Will a synthesis of developmental and evolutionary biology require a focus on the role of nongenetic resources in evolution? Nongenetic variation may exist but be hidden because the phenotypes are stable (developmentally canalized) under certain background conditions. In this case, those differences may come to play important roles in evolution when background conditions change. If this is so, then a focus on the way that developmental resources are made reliable, and the ways in which reliability fails, may prove to be of crucial importance to linking developmental and evolutionary biology.

Type
Evolutionary Innovation and Novelties
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the other participants in the “Evolutionary Innovations and Novelties” symposium, and especially Massimo Pigliucci and Alan Love, who read drafts of this article and made helpful suggestions.

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