Evo-Devo: Discovery of Diverse Mechanisms Regulating Development.

Abstract

Evo-devo is a relatively new field focusing on how mechanisms controlling development have changed during evolution. To date, studies of highly conserved members of an animal genetic toolkit have predominated in this field. These toolkit genes were originally identified in a small number of model organisms that do not represent the extant diversity of metazoans. We describe how this research paradigm came to be and what we have learned from it, and then argue that studies of other types of animals and of lineage-specific genes, in both model and nonmodel systems, are needed to expand our understanding of development and evolution.