Evolutionary Developmental mechanisims

Running head: ARTICLE CRITIQUE
Evo -Devo: Evolutionary Developmental mechanisms
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Evo -Devo: Evolutionary Developmental mechanisms
The purpose of the study was to identify the developmental mechanisms that bring about evolutionary mechanisms in most organisms. For a long time, most scientists have sought to understand the relationships between the transformation of an organism within a single generation-development, ontogeny, ontogenetic change- and those transformations that occur between generations- evolution, phylogeny, phylogenetic change. This study seeks to provide more insight on Evo-devo mechanisms. The questions the study seeks to answer include the main Evo-devo mechanisms that explain the evolutionary transformation in organisms.
Some of the findings of the study include, Heterochrony which is a mechanism operating during embryonic development, Heterotopy which is the spatial location of one or more developmental processes (Hall, 2003).
These two evolutionary developmental mechanisms are based on earlier models of embryonic development suggesting that genes could affect the rates of developmental and physiological processes. The results by Hall & Olson shed light on the origin and evolution of embryonic development, how modifications of developmental processes lead to production of novel features, adaptive plasticity of development in life history evolution, how ecology impacts on development to modulate evolutionary change and the developmental basis of homoplasy and homology.
However, the study raises some questions as to whether these are the only evolutionary developmental mechanisms identifiable and also details as to how they work.
Some studies ind...