Casey W Dunn, Günter P Wagner

2006/12/1

Development genes and evolution

216

12

743-754

Springer-Verlag

Abstract Evolutionary developmental biology has focused almost exclusively on multicellular
organisms, but there are other relevant levels of biological organization that have remained
largely neglected. Animal colonies are made up of multiple physiologically integrated and
genetically identical units called zooids that are each homologous to solitary, free-living
animals. Siphonophores, a group of pelagic hydrozoans (Cnidaria), have the most complex
colony-level organization of all animals. Here the colony-level development of five ...