Abstract
Comparative developmental biology and comparative genomics are the cornerstones of evolutionary developmental biology. Decades of fruitful research using nematodes have produced detailed accounts of the developmental and genomic variation in the nematode phylum. Evolutionary developmental biologists are now utilising these data as a tool with which to interrogate the evolutionary basis for the similarities and differences observed in Nematoda. Nematodes have often seemed atypical compared to the rest of the animal kingdom—from their totally lineage-dependent mode of embryogenesis to their abandonment of key toolkit genes usually deployed by bilaterians for proper development—worms are notorious rule breakers of the bilaterian handbook. However, exploring the nature of these deviations is providing answers to some of the biggest questions about the evolution of animal development. For example, why is the evolvability of each embryonic stage not the same? Why can evolution sometimes tolerate the loss of genes involved in key developmental events? Lastly, why does natural selection act to radically diverge toolkit genes in number and sequence in certain taxa? In answering these questions, insight is not only being provided about the evolution of nematodes, but of all metazoans.
Highlights
IntroductionEvolutionary developmental biology aims to explain how the modification of developmental processes and mechanisms over the course of evolution produces changes in animal morphology
In the second part of this review, we explore what the effect of evolving a divergent gene toolkit has been on C. elegans development
We argue that the field of nematode evolutionary developmental biology is at a critical turning point because of the confluence of comparative developmental biology and comparative genomics
Summary
Evolutionary developmental biology aims to explain how the modification of developmental processes and mechanisms over the course of evolution produces changes in animal morphology. The field of C. elegans developmental genetics has focussed on particular aspects of development, for example sex determination [2], neurobiology [3], and vulval organogenesis [4]. Such studies have been expanded in recent years to other Caenorhabditis species, marking the dawn of nematode comparative developmental biology. The current approach has been largely descriptive This is a missed opportunity, because evolutionary developmental biology is more than merely describing how development is controlled in model and non-model systems. We consider what this has meant for the worm as a model in evolutionary developmental biology, and what being an atypical bilaterian has to offer the field of evolutionary developmental biology at large
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