The rare occurrence of a reversion to an ancestral state following adaptive radiations of pollination syndromes suggests that changes in the ancestral developmental programme of flowers are common in this scenario...
Tag - Developmental robustness
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Stochastic variation in Cardamine hirsuta petal number
Petal number is a robust trait in flowering plants. Crucifer flowers have four petals but Monniaux et al. show that petal number varies from zero to four in Cardamine hirsuta. They mapped quantitative trait loci...
Why should we investigate the morphological disparity of plant clades?
Macroevolution of major clades is often studied by plotting their taxonomic diversity through time. It is equally informative, but less commonplace, to investigate how clades explore anatomical ‘design’ space by...
Evolution of unusual morphologies in Lentibulariaceae and Podostemaceae
Rutishauser presents a pictorial report on released bauplans as typical for bladderworts (Utricularia, Lentibulariaceae) and river-weeds (Podostemaceae) within eudicots (angiosperms). Lentibulariaceae are carnivorous...
The significance of developmental robustness for species diversity
Why some taxa are more species-rich than others still represents a major conundrum in biology. Ecological opportunities and evolutionary innovations are considered main factors that drive biodiversity, but are sometimes...
Molecular mechanisms of noise and robustness
Robustness, the inverse of noise, is a molecularly programmed feature of biological systems. The molecular networks of some organismal phenotypes like development are designed to maximize robustness, while other...
Genetic assimilation and the evolution of novelty
Most, if not all, organisms possess the ability to alter their phenotype in direct response to changes in their environment, a phenomenon known as phenotypic plasticity. Selection can break this environmental...
The developmental genetics of biological robustness
Biological systems face constant perturbations, yet often manage to produce invariable developmental phenotypes. Developmental robustness is a property observed across phyla and recent work in yeast, animals and plants...
