Testing for Developmental Constraints: Carpal Fusions in Urodeles

Vogl, Claus; Rienesl, Jürgen

doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1991.tb02654.x

Cited by 8 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…In the debates following this famous critique, special attention was given to constraints that are inherent to development (Pigliucci and Kaplan 2000), because the impossibility of producing complex phenotypes may also be the reason for observed biological features (universal constraints as defined by Maynard-Smith et al 1985), and developmental constraints may be seen as a prime phenotypic filter before natural selection (Arthur 2001(Arthur , 2002. This debate has been strongly theoretical (Resnik 1995) and so far little empirical investigation has been produced in favor of developmental constraints (e.g., Gould 1989;Vogl and Rienesl 1991;Arthur and Farrow 1999). On the other hand, some studies investigating this question favored adaptive explanations over historical effects (Janson 1992;Travisano et al 1995;Miller et al 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Constraints and selection: insights from microsporogenesis in Asparagales

Penet¹,

Laurin²,

Gouyon³

et al. 2007

Evolution and Development

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Developmental constraints have been proposed to interfere with natural selection in limiting the available set of potential adaptations. Whereas this concept has long been debated on theoretical grounds, it has been investigated empirically only in a few studies. In this article, we evaluate the importance of developmental constraints during microsporogenesis (male meiosis in plants), with an emphasis on phylogenetic patterns in Asparagales. Different developmental constraints were tested by character reshuffling or by simulated distributions. Among the different characteristics of microsporogenesis, only cell wall formation appeared as constrained. We show that constraints may also result from biases in the correlated occurrence of developmental steps (e.g., lack of successive cytokinesis when wall formation is centripetal). We document such biases and their potential outcomes, notably the establishment of intermediate stages, which allow development to bypass such constraints. These insights are discussed with regard to potential selection on pollen morphology.

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