Russian comparative embryology takes form: a conceptual metamorphosis toward “evo‐devo”

Abstract

This essay recapitulates major paths followed by the Russian tradition of what we refer to today as evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo"). The article addresses several questions regarding the conceptual history of evolutionary embryological thought in its particularly Russian perspective: (1) the assertion by the St. Petersburg academician Wolff regarding the possible connections between environmental modifications during morphogenesis and the "transformation" of species, (2) the discovery of shared "principles" underlying animal development by von Baer, (3) the experimental expression of Baer's principles by Kowalevsky and Mechnikoff, (4) Severtsov's theory of phylembryogenesis, (5) Filatov's approach to the study of evolution using comparative "developmental mechanics", and (6) Shmalgausen's concept of "stabilizing" selection as an attempt to elucidate the evolution of developmental mechanisms. The focus on comparative evolutionary embryology, which was established by Kowalevsky and Mechnikoff, still continues to be popular in present-day "evo-devo" research in Russia.

On the origins of anticipation as an evolutionary framework: functional systems perspective

“…While the roots of modern organismic and systems-oriented biology in the earlier scientific traditions of Russian and German schools are relatively well known (Gilbert and Sarkar 2000;Gilbert and Jessica 2003;Levit 2007;Olsson, Levit, and Hoßfeld 2010;Mikhailov 2012) and widely discussed on the background of increased interest in epigenetic and systems-theoretical problems, a similar interest on the part of neuroscientists, philosophers and historians of science seems to have been lacking for the traditions of Russian/Soviet neuroscience and related disciplines. The conference "Learning from the Past: Soviet/Russian Contributions to a Science of Anticipation" (organized by Mihai Nadin, 2015) tried to address this shortcoming as does the current issue.…”

“…The fact itself that modern evolutionary developmental and ecological developmental biology have their roots in earlier (mainly Russian and German) biological schools is well known (Gilbert and Jessica 2003;Levit 2007;Olsson, Levit, and Hoßfeld 2010;Mikhailov 2012) -as in the last evolutionary synthesis, developmental biology was not prominently featured (Laubichler and Maienschein 2007). On the other hand, while relatively much has been known and said about the late nineteenth-century views on the organismic problems of the International Journal of General Systems 707 biogenetic law, comparative embryology, morphogenesis and their relations to developmental mechanics, virtually nothing has been known until very recently about the fate of these questions in the period between the 1920s and the 1970s (Laubichler and Maienschein 2007).…”

Revisiting the past in view of the future

“…The central point is that von Baer () made a careful distinction between experimental data , which he appreciated, and interpretation of the data, which he refuted. By conflating these two concepts, Mikhailov () creates the impression of a substantial agreement between Kowalevsky and von Baer which anticipated a few recent molecular achievements. On the contrary, it must be stated clearly that Kowalevsky's evolutionary ideas diverged from the path that led to the concept of the chordates and that von Baer accepted evolution, not the kinship between ascidians and vertebrates.…”

“…To confuse matters even worse, the opinions of Karl Ernst von Baer, the mentor of Kowalevsky who never accepted the homologies between ascidians and vertebrates, are sometimes summarized in such a way that the reader can easily reach the opposite conclusion. For instance, in the January/February issue of Evolution & Development , Mikhailov () wrote:

“It has recently been claimed (Raineri ) that some of Kowalevsky's interpretations of his own experimental results may be incomplete or even incorrect and that von Baer had doubts about the “reliability” of Kowalevsky's conclusions on the phylogenetic relationship of ascidians and vertebrates. However, it appears to be undervalued or underrecognized that: (1) Kowalevsky was not a pioneer of the annelid theory, as Raineri () states, but he was the first to demonstrate structural and developmental similarities between ascidian and lower‐vertebrate larvae, (2) the von Baer () manuscript on ascidians was critical of dilettantes who believed that ascidians could be ancestors of humans, not against Kowalevsky's experimental data (commented in Lukina ), and (3) Kowalevsky substantially extended von Baer's empirical generalizations by demonstrating the existence of germ layers and gastrulation processes in both invertebrates and vertebrates (see Mikhailov and Gilbert ; Brauckmann and Gilbert ).

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Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) and Evolution

“…The present analysis also hinges on a new interpretation of Baer's use of the word "type", which should not be taken to mean an "ideal archetype", as is still commonly assumed (Mikhailov, 2012). Because of its Platonic connotations Baer intentionally did not use archetype when defining type as the "positional relationship between the organic rudiments and organs" (Baer 1828: 208), which is empirically verifiable by any observer (Rieppel, 2006).…”