Cells, embryos, and evolution: Toward a cellular and developmental understanding of phenotypic variation and evolutionary adaptability

Abstract

Their starting point is the conservation of so many cellular processes and structures despite extensive evolutionary diversification. They attempt to do justice to the complexity of the process from genotype to phenotype, with an approach spanning biochemistry and cellular and developmental biology, from the molecular level to the organism. They also reach out to phylogenetics, paleontology, genetics, and other disciplines. The one major limitation is a restriction to the metazoa, with particular attention paid to the arthropods and chordates.