Evolutionary developmental biology
Field · 1980s onward · Biology, stage 2: Map the fields
Evolutionary developmental biology, usually shortened to evo-devo, asks how changes in the process that builds an organism from an egg produce evolutionary change in its form. Its founding surprise was that the genes controlling body layout are largely the same across animals as distant as flies and mice, so large differences in form come mostly from changes in when and where those genes are switched on rather than from different genes. It closed a gap the modern synthesis had left, which treated development as a black box between genotype and phenotype.
What it claims
- The same small set of regulatory genes patterns the bodies of very distantly related animals.
- Evolutionary change in form comes mainly from changes in gene regulation, not from new structural genes.
- What development can build constrains which forms selection has available to act on.
Key ideas
People
Sources
- Evolutionary developmental biology Wikipedia
- Developmental Biology Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Developmental biology Wikipedia
