A Research Programme for Testing the Biological Homology Concept

Wagner, Günter P.

doi:10.1002/9780470515655.ch9

Cited by 23 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In addition, taking such a developmental perspective potentially sheds light on order effects in learning, and on the nature and importance of critical periodsespecially when (re-)understood in light of the concept of ''burden'' (Riedl, 1978;Wagner, 1999): the more multiply integrated a circuit becomes, the more difficult to change its local character without affecting many different functions. Reuse, then, should place specific, detectible constraints on development that can be investigated observationally in humans, and experimentally in animals.…”

Section: Developmental Psychobiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural reuse in the evolution and development of the brain: Evidence for developmental homology?

Anderson

Penner-Wilger

2012

Developmental Psychobiology

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This article lays out some of the empirical evidence for the importance of neural reuse-the reuse of existing (inherited and/or early developing) neural circuitry for multiple behavioral purposes-in defining the overall functional structure of the brain. We then discuss in some detail one particular instance of such reuse: the involvement of a local neural circuit in finger awareness, number representation, and other diverse functions. Finally, we consider whether and how the notion of a developmental homology can help us understand the relationships between the cognitive functions that develop out of shared neural supports.

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Section: Developmental Psychobiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural reuse in the evolution and development of the brain: Evidence for developmental homology?

Anderson

Penner-Wilger

2012

Developmental Psychobiology

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“…Violating this seems to introduce a modicum of circularity into the whole inferential process, or more generously, it conjoins homology assessment and phylogenetic reconstruction into a single, mutually reinforcing process. As we extend the use of these phylogenies to study the developmental basis of character evolution, there is clearly a hope that shared states usually reduce to homologous components of underlying developmental mechanisms (Wagner 1989(Wagner , 1999. As we settle upon general criteria for testing evolutionary developmental scenarios (Abouheif 1999), it will be very important to estimate the pervasiveness of developmental system drift.…”

Section: Speciation and Branched Pathwaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of branched regulatory genetic pathways: directional selection on pleiotropic loci accelerates developmental system drift

Johnson

Porter

2006

Genetica

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Developmental systems are regulated by a web of interacting loci. One common and useful approach in studying the evolution of development is to focus on classes of interacting elements within these systems. Here, we use individual-based simulations to study the evolution of traits controlled by branched developmental pathways involving three loci, where one locus regulates two different traits. We examined the system under a variety of selective regimes. In the case where one branch was under stabilizing selection and the other under directional selection, we observed "developmental system drift": the trait under stabilizing selection showed little phenotypic change even though the loci underlying that trait showed considerable evolutionary divergence. This occurs because the pleiotropic locus responds to directional selection and compensatory mutants are then favored in the pathway under stabilizing selection. Though developmental system drift may be caused by other mechanisms, it seems likely that it is accelerated by the same underlying genetic mechanism as that producing the Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities that lead to speciation in both linear and branched pathways. We also discuss predictions of our model for developmental system drift and how different selective regimes affect probabilities of speciation in the branched pathway system.

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“…The evolutionary developmental biologist Günter Wagner has argued that the taxic conception of homology is incomplete in a more pervasive way (Wagner 1989(Wagner , 1994(Wagner , 1999. It relies on the traditional criteria of homology to identify which part of a parent is homologous to which part of an offspring, but has no theoretical account of that relationship (see also Brigandt 2002).…”

Section: Homology and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The phenomena of homology

Griffiths

2007

Biol Philos

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Philosophical discussions of biological classification have failed to recognise the central role of homology in the classification of biological parts and processes. One reason for this is a misunderstanding of the relationship between judgments of homology and the core explanatory theories of biology. The textbook characterisation of homology as identity by descent is commonly regarded as a definition. I suggest instead that it is one of several attempts to explain the phenomena of homology. Twenty years ago the 'new experimentalist' movement in philosophy of science drew attention to the fact that many experimental phenomena have a 'life of their own': the conviction that they are real is not dependent on the theories used to characterise and explain them. I suggest that something similar can be true of descriptive phenomena, and that many homologies are phenomena of this kind. As a result the descriptive biology of form and function has a life of its own-a degree of epistemological independence from the theories that explain form and function. I also suggest that the two major 'homology concepts' in contemporary biology, usually seen as two competing definitions, are in reality complementary elements of the biological explanation of homology.Keywords Homology Á Function Á Selected effects Á Experimental phenomenon Á Descriptive biology Á Compositional biology Form, function, homology and adaptive function ''In the functional anatomist's vocabulary, form and function were both observable, experimentally measurable attributes of anatomical items (e.g.

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A Research Programme for Testing the Biological Homology Concept

Cited by 23 publications

References 36 publications

Neural reuse in the evolution and development of the brain: Evidence for developmental homology?

Neural reuse in the evolution and development of the brain: Evidence for developmental homology?

Evolution of branched regulatory genetic pathways: directional selection on pleiotropic loci accelerates developmental system drift

The phenomena of homology

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