The Evolution of Developmental Pathways

About this book

A principal aim of this text is to introduce upper-level students and biologists in other disciplines to this field, and to present it within its larger context. The book also suggests a useful general framework for thinking about developmental evolution. The book's organizing concept is that of the genetic pathway, the sequence of requisite genetic and molecular activities that underlie a developmental process. From this perspective, the author explores the nature of the genetic, molecular, and selectional events that alter these pathways, yielding developmental change.

Contents

PART I: Context and Foundations - Evolution and Embryology: A Brief History of a Complex Pas de Deux - Information Sources for Reconstructing Developmental Evolution I: Fossils - Information Sources for Reconstructing Developmental Evolution II: Comparative Molecular Studies - Genetic Pathways and Networks in Development - Conserved Genes and Functions in Animal Development - PART II: Case Studies in Pathway Evolution - Evolving Developmental Pathways I: Sex Determination - Evolving Developmental Pathways II: Segmental Patterning in Insects - Evolving Developmental Pathways III: Two Organ "Fields," The Nematode Vulva and the Tetrapod Limb - PART III: Conundrums - Genetic Source Materials for Developmental Evolution - Costs and Constraints: Factors that Retard and Channel Developmental Evolution - On Growth and Form: The Developmental and Evolutionary Genetics of Morphogenesis - Speciation and Developmental Evolution - Metazoan Origins and the Beginnings of Complex Animal Evolution - The Coming Evolution of Evolutionary Developmental Biology - Appendix 1: Genetic Nomenclature - Appendix 2: Cladistics - Appendix 3: Molecular Clocks - Glossary - References

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Biography

ADAM WILKINS is Editor of the journal BioEssays.