Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Nature of Development
- 2 Everything Begun to the Service of Development: Cellular Darwinism and the Origin of Animal Form
- 3 Development: Generic to Genetic
- 4 Periodisation
- 5 Body Regions: Their Boundaries and Complexity
- 6 Differentiation and Patterning
- 7 Size Factors
- 8 Axes and Symmetries
- 9 Segments
- 10 Evo-devo Perspectives on Homology
- Summary and Conclusions
- References
- Index
1 - The Nature of Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 The Nature of Development
- 2 Everything Begun to the Service of Development: Cellular Darwinism and the Origin of Animal Form
- 3 Development: Generic to Genetic
- 4 Periodisation
- 5 Body Regions: Their Boundaries and Complexity
- 6 Differentiation and Patterning
- 7 Size Factors
- 8 Axes and Symmetries
- 9 Segments
- 10 Evo-devo Perspectives on Homology
- Summary and Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
Ontogeny is the unfolding of coupled developmental mechanisms whose parameters are largely specified by the genome. We hardly understand when and whether such mechanisms give rise to a few forms robustly or a plethora of forms each requiring the most delicate genetic balance among the control parameters. If robust flow into one or a few morphologies, governed by parameters easily held in vast volumes of parameter space, is the norm when many mechanisms are coupled, then robust morphogenesis could be the norm as well. Robustness may flow from complexity itself.
B.C. Goodwin, S.A. Kauffman and J.D. Murray 1993: 143The evolution of the cell can be regarded as the ‘big bang’ of biological evolution even though it took a very long time. The origin of embryonic development from cells can be regarded as the ‘little bang’ since the cell was already there.
L. Wolpert 1994: 79Development for the Sake of Development
The shapes of things are temporarily stable configurations compatible with the underlying dynamics. This is obviously true of a flame, a river or a water drop. But this is also true of life in all its manifestations. The origin of life is the origin of a peculiar set of processes rather than the origin of peculiar things. Development is the sum of the never-ending changes of multicellular organisms, a set of processes that transcends the conventional limits of one generation, from egg to adult.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Development of Animal FormOntogeny, Morphology, and Evolution, pp. 1 - 11Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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