Conserved but flexible modularity in the zebrafish skull: implications for craniofacial evolvability.

ABSTRACT: Morphological variation is the outward manifestation of development and provides fodder for adaptive evolution. Because of this contingency, evolution is often thought to be biased by developmental processes and functional interactions among structures, which are statistically detectable through forms of covariance among traits. This can take the form of substructures of integrated traits, termed modules, which together comprise patterns of variational modularity. While modularity is essential to an understanding of evolutionary potential, biologists currently have little understanding of its genetic basis and its temporal dynamics over generations. To address these open questions, we compared patterns of craniofacial modularity among laboratory strains, defined mutant lines and a wild pop

SUBMITTER: Parsons KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5936725 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature