Species-specific developmental timing dictates expansion of the avian wing skeletal pattern

Abstract

How development is timed between differently sized species is a fundamental question in biology. To address this problem, we compared wing development in the quail and the larger chick. We reveal that developmental timing is faster in the quail than in the chick, and is associated with pattern specification, proliferation, organiser duration, differentiation and apoptosis. However, developmental timing is independent of the growth rate, which is equivalent between both species, and therefore scales pattern to the size of the wing. We reveal that developmental timing can be either maintained or reset in interspecies tissue grafts, and we implicate retinoic acid as the resetting signal. Accordingly, retinoic acid can switch species developmental timing and rescale pattern, both between the quail and chick, and the chick and the larger turkey. We suggest that the scaling of pattern to wing bud size is achieved by the modulation of developmental timing against a comparable rate of growth.

Expression Atlas of Avian Neural Crest Proteins: Neurulation to Migration

“…Recent work also focused on scaling in wing patterning between differently sized avian species, including quail, chick, and turkey (Stainton and Towers, 2021). The authors compared wing pattern growth rates between quail and chick and found that quail limb developmental timing is accelerated by 12 hours compared to chick.…”

“…The authors compared wing pattern growth rates between quail and chick and found that quail limb developmental timing is accelerated by 12 hours compared to chick. Between 0-12 hours of observation, quail wing buds grew at a significantly faster rate than chick wings and had faster proximodistal specification (Stainton and Towers, 2021). In addition, they identified that retinoic acid (RA) is responsible for species-specific developmental timing and wing scaling patterns (Stainton and Towers, 2021).…”