Model Organisms, Conserved Stages and Processes

Abstract

To begin a comparative analysis of developmental processes, I now discuss the fundamental stages and processes of embryonic development. I begin the chapter with a discussion of the (inevitable) use of model organisms and the desirability of a comparative approach, before proceeding to a discussion of conserved life-history stages, embryonic stages and processes of early vertebrate development. Chapters 9-11 are then devoted to how these processes build embryos and organ systems.

‘A more intensive comparative study of development will be needed before we can know which aspects of ontogeny are historically constrained and which are free to vary, and to what extent patterns of constraint are similar in even closely related groups.’ Kluge and Strauss, 1985, p. 264