How the Dolphin Got His Flippers.
UNIVERSITIES & colleges; ANATOMY; DELPHINIDAE; EMBRYOLOGY; EMBRYOS; FORELIMB; Hans; THEWISSEN
Embryonic development in dolphins retrofits a land-adapted body for life in the sea. But the rarity of preserved specimens stymies students and researchers who want to study, say, how the forelimbs morph into flippers. Aimed at filling this gap is the newborn site Digital Library of Dolphin Development, created by anatomist Hans Thewissen of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown and colleagues. People can also probe the gory details of internal anatomy with sectioned embryos representing three developmental stages.
Leslie Mitch
Science
2004
2004-08-20
Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
Macroevolutionary developmental biology: Embryos, fossils, and phylogenies.
*Embryo; *Fossils; *Phylogeny; Animals; Developmental Biology/*methods; embryos; evolutionary developmental biology; fossils; macroevolution; Models; Nonmammalian; phylogenetic comparative methods; Statistical; Vertebrates
The field of evolutionary developmental biology is broadly focused on identifying the genetic and developmental mechanisms underlying morphological diversity. Connecting the genotype with the phenotype means that evo-devo research often considers a wide range of evidence, from genetics and morphology to fossils. In this commentary, we provide an overview and framework for integrating fossil ontogenetic data with developmental data using phylogenetic comparative methods to test macroevolutionary hypotheses. We survey the vertebrate fossil record of preserved embryos and discuss how phylogenetic comparative methods can integrate data from developmental genetics and paleontology. Fossil embryos provide limited, yet critical, developmental data from deep time. They help constrain when developmental innovations first appeared during the history of life and also reveal the order in which related morphologies evolved. Phylogenetic comparative methods provide a powerful statistical approach that allows evo-devo researchers to infer the presence of nonpreserved developmental traits in fossil species and to detect discordant evolutionary patterns and processes across levels of biological organization.
Organ Chris L; Cooper Lisa Noelle; Hieronymus Tobin L
Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists
2015
2015-10
Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/dvdy.24318" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">10.1002/dvdy.24318</a>