Functional design in the evolution of embryos and larvae.
A function of development is to put the right kind of cells in the right place at the right time. Other functional analyses help define what is right. As examples, functional analyses offer explanations for the unicellular bottleneck in life histories that necessitates embryos, evolutionary divergences in embryonic cell cycles, conditions permissive of loss of larval structures and consequent change in embryonic development, and the decoupled development of larval bodies and juvenile rudiments. Functional analyses also reveal the specifications required of morphogenesis, hence defining developmental phenomena to be explained.
Strathmann
R R
RR
Friday Harbor Laboratories and the Department of Zoology, University of Washington, 620 University Road, Friday Harbor, WA 98250, USA. strath@fhl.washington.edu
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002453:Cell Cycle; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000166:cytology / Q000196:embryology*; D007814:Larva / Q000254:growth & development*; D009024:Morphogenesis