Publication Date:
2011-02-26
Description:
Understanding the diversification of phenotypes through time--"descent with modification"--has been the focus of evolutionary biology for 150 years. If, contrary to expectations, similarity evolves in unrelated taxa, researchers are guided to uncover the genetic and developmental mechanisms responsible. Similar phenotypes may be retained from common ancestry (homology), but a phylogenetic context may instead reveal that they are independently derived, due to convergence or parallel evolution, or less likely, that they experienced reversal. Such examples of homoplasy present opportunities to discover the foundations of morphological traits. A common underlying mechanism may exist, and components may have been redeployed in a way that produces the "same" phenotype. New, robust phylogenetic hypotheses and molecular, genomic, and developmental techniques enable integrated exploration of the mechanisms by which similarity arises.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Wake, David B -- Wake, Marvalee H -- Specht, Chelsea D -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Feb 25;331(6020):1032-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1188545.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. davidbwake@gmail.com〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21350170" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Adaptation, Biological
;
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
Morphogenesis/genetics
;
Mutation
;
*Phenotype
;
Phylogeny
;
Plants/genetics
;
Selection, Genetic
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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