Evolution, 4th Edition

genotype ×

environment (G×E)

interaction

heterochrony

heterotopy

homeotic selector

gene

Hox gene

individualization

interaction

module, modular

neoteny

ontogeny

paedomorphosis

phenotypic

integration

phenotypic plasticity

reaction norm

serially homologous

trans-regulatory

element

transcription factor

(TF)

transgenic

SuGGESTionS FoR FuRTHER REAdinG

An excellent, very readable introduction to cur-

rent evolutionary developmental biology,

emphasizing regulation of gene expression,

is From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics

and the Evolution of Animal Design by Sean

B. Carroll, Jennifer K. Grenier, and Scott d.

Weatherbee (second edition, Blackwell Sci-

ence, malden, mA, 2005). For the more gen-

eral science reader, S. B. Carroll describes the

development of EdB in Endless Forms Most

Beautiful: The New Science of Evo-Devo (W.

W. norton, new York, 2006).

david l. Stern provides a clear exposition of

developmental pathways and their evolution

in Evolution, Development, & The Predictable

Genome (Roberts and Company, Greenwood

village, Co, 2011). Also see m. Rebeiz, n.

H. Patel, and v. F. Hinman, “unravelling the

tangled skein: the evolution of transcriptional

regulatory networks in development” (Annu.

Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet. 16: 103–131,

2015).

one of the leading textbooks on developmen-

tal biology is Developmental Biology (11th

edition) by Scott F. Gilbert and michael J. F.

Barresi (Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, mA,

2016). in Ecological Developmental Biology

(Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, mA, 2009),

Gilbert and david Epel treat the evolution and

ecology of phenotypic plasticity and related

topics.

Rudolph A. Raff, one of the founders of modern

EdB, portrayed the field at an early stage in his

influential book The Shape of Life: Genes, De-

velopment, and the Evolution of Animal Form

(university of Chicago Press, 1996). Eric H.

davidson, a developmental biologist whose

insights helped shape the field, did much the

same in The Regulatory Genome: Gene Regu-

latory Networks in Development and Evolution

(Academic Press, london, 2006).

An introduction to the evolution of modularity is

G. P. Wagner, m. Pavlicev, and J. m. Cheverud,

“The road to modularity” (Nat. Rev. Genet. 8:

921–931, 2007).

PRoBlEmS And diSCuSSion ToPiCS

1. Haeckel’s statement that “ontogeny recapitu-
   lates phylogeny” differs from what we now call
   von Baer’s law—the generalization that features
   common to a higher taxon often appear earlier
   in development than the specific characters of
   lower-level taxa. Compare and contrast these
   two ways of thinking about changes in develop-
   ment over the course of animal evolution. Even
   though we now know that Haeckel’s dictum sel-
   dom holds, what can we learn about phylogeny
   from development?


2. if two allometrically related traits show a strong
   correlation both within and among species,
   what kinds of experiments would you use to test
   whether these correlations are due to natural
   selection or to developmental genetic con-
   straints? (Assume the organisms of interest are

easily amenable to laboratory study.) What can

we infer about the underlying genetic architec-

ture of traits whose allometric relationships do

not vary? What about those that do vary?

3. How might differential expression of and regu-
   lation by Hox genes contribute to mosaic evolu-
   tion in which different segments of an animal
   body plan evolve different morphologies?


4. if mutations such as those of the Ubx gene can
   drastically change morphology in a single step,
   why do most evolutionary biologists maintain
   that modification of existing traits and the evo-
   lution of novel characters have generally pro-
   ceeded by successive small steps?


5. Can convergent (or parallel) evolution of similar
   morphology in two different lineages involve

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