Evolution, Development, and the Predictable Genome

by David L. Stern

For too long, efforts to synthesize evolution and development have failed to build a united view of the origins and evolution of biological diversity. In this groundbreaking book, David Stern sets out to draw evolutionary biology and developmental biology together by cutting through the differences that divide the disciplines and by revealing their deeper similarities. He draws upon the insights of generations of evolutionary biologists and scores of developmental biologists to build a solid foundation for future investigation of the genetic and developmental causes of diversity. Along the way, and in plain English, he explicates many of the guiding principles of evolution, population genetics, and developmental biology. Each chapter offers a clear review of fundamental principles, together with thoughtprovoking ideas that will be tested only with data emerging from current and future studies. With the basic principles established, he then offers a new way of thinking about development—backwards—to clarify precisely how the mechanisms of development influence evolution. In the same spirit, he takes a fresh look at evolution in populations, arguing that population history influences precisely how developmental mechanisms evolve. Both Stern's new perspective on development and his reassessment of the role of populations leads to the surprising conclusion that the evolution of genomes appears to be predictable. Stern argues that developmental biology and evolutionary biology are it is impossible to understand one of them fully without understanding the other. This book provides a clear and wide-ranging introduction to evolution and development for the basic reader; graduate students will be introduced to the cutting-edge of research in evolutionary developmental biology; and experts in evolution or development will receive both an uncomplicated introduction to the other discipline and an abundance of new, provocative ideas.

Genres: Science, Biology, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

Dr. Stern is a group leader at the Janelia Research Campus. From 2008 to 2011, he was an HHMI investigator at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right, so this is another book that I read for class, this time Topics in Evolution. Exciting, I know. Anyway, this is an interesting book. Presumably, it is written for a general audience of non-experts. However, I definitely felt that my reading of this book was vastly improved the by the addition of clarifying primary literature and review articles, most of which I would assume are not very accessible to novices in the field of evolutionary biology, but then I wonder how large an audience this book really has outside of professionally interested people ...

ANYWAY, Stern sets out on the somewhat prodigious task of laying out a roadmap to "predicting" evolution. He singles out several large, general factors to explain in detail in each chapter, and then at the end of the book he attempts to bring them all together to enable the prediction of evolutionary changes on the genomic level. Epistasis (many genes affecting a single trait), pleiotropy (a single gene affecting multiple unrelated traits), dominance, and natural selection in populations each get a chapter that explains what they are and their importance in dictating evolutionary trajectories.

The issue is not whether these chapters are effective discussions of the topics at hand, but whether they are truly effectively united at the end of the book. Each individual chapter is a thorough discussion that I think would be acessible to a general audience, but I don't know if the pay off is worth all the work. Stern's attempts to unite these concepts seem a little weak and aimless at best, and the lack of direction given at the beginning of the book is a real detriment. The reader is left with little idea of where we're going other than tantalizing hints in the form of mysterious examples. And in the end, the payoff seems to come a bit out of left field.

Bottom line: Stern has interesting ideas and the book as a whole is a good introduction and overview of the factors that affect evolution on the pathway and network level, but the final product is a less satisfying "grand unified theory" than one would expect given the title of the book and the promise of the first chapters.

[Benbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent synthesis of two fields written in clear, straightforward language that is a useful read for researchers with backgrounds in either development or evolution as well as non-specialists. Stern illustrates how concepts evolutionary and developmental biology relate to each other and how the lessons learned from both can further our understanding of how organisms evolve. This is not a comprehensive review of data bearing on the questions of evo-devo, and Stern does not discuss jargony debates in evo-devo that have less established grounding in molecular mechanisms or population genetics (robustness, evolvability, genetic assimilation/accommodation, etc). Instead, he focuses on the genetic basis of adaptation with illustrations from strong case studies and his recent meta-analysis of recent literature. I think few scientists who have followed this field for the last decade will be surprised by anything in Stern's book. However the book offers something equally important, an incisive conceptual synthesis of the major considerations involved when approaching the molecular basis of evolutionary changes in form, physiology, or behavior.