A history of Evo-Devo research in Spain

Abstract

A history of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo in short) in Spain is presented. From an almost total lack of research and tradition in Embryology, Genetics and Evolution throughout the 19 th and well into the 20 th century, evolution and development was first bridged in the 1970-80s by the structuralist approach of Pere Alberch and by important sidestudies from the Madrid School of Developmental Genetics. A second stage was set in the early 1990s when a few scattered labs start to address problems which arose abroad by major advances in molecular phylogenetics and comparative gene expression patterns in selected animal models. The principal contributions included the nature and molecular features of the first bilaterians and the first chordates, the patterning of the vertebrate brain and limbs, and insect appendages and, on a finer scale, the roles of specific gene and gene families in vertebrate neural crest origin and in the patterning of sensory elements in the Drosophila species. Because a common genetic toolkit exists from sponges to man, current Evo-Devo research is taking a dual approach. On a "macroevolutionary" scale, it asks how and when developmental genes were assembled, at key points in the phylogenetic scale, into interacting functional networks to determine regional and tissue specific identities. On a "microevolutionary" scale, it analyzes how changes in the regulatory and codifying regions of specific genes correlate with specific morphological changes and how they could spread in natural populations. Given the paucity of such studies in current Spanish labs, a call is made to foster them.

Conceptual Change in Biology

“…Baguñà (2009) has nicely summarized major steps in these areas from the time of the Dahlem conference to the present, starting with the discovery of the homeobox, the recognition that regulatory systems are widely conserved across taxa, the discovery of the important role of gene duplication in vertebrate phylogeny, the findings that cis-regulatory modules evolve by mutation, co-option and reshuffling, the understanding that there is a kind of molecular toolbox for development, the formulation of the concept of gene regulatory networks, sequencing of whole genomes, and the dawn of the age of genomics, and subsequently phylogenomics. While I think I made some progress after the Dahlem conference , homoplasy remains a challenge today.…”

A perspective on the development of Genetics in Spain during the XX Century

“…It has been suggested that in the period between the 50s and the 80s, Spain was a desert for Genetics with an oasis centered in the group of García-Bellido in Madrid (Baguña, 2009). Unless one was interested in plant genetics, there is some truth to this view, but it is also true that Genetics was taught and worked upon in other places, and that these smaller activities had an influence on some individuals.…”

Looking Beyond the Genes

“…They have been fascinating scientists from different working fields for more than a century. After nearly half a century of complete separation between embryological and evolutionary studies, the two fields converged in the late 1970s-early 1980s, giving rise to the "EvoDevo" research field (Alberch, Gould, Oster, & Wake, 1979;Bonner, 1982;Gould, 1977; for reviews, see Amundson, 2005;Baguna, 2009). These pioneer Evo-Devo studies urged to uncover the generative rules of development, that is, the set of principles that connect all hierarchical scales of development together: molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.…”