Meeting Abstract

LBS2.1  Thursday, Jan. 3  THE MOUSE AND THE EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY OF THE MAMMALIAN SKULL HALLGRIMSSON, Benedikt; University of Calgary bhallgri@ucalgary.ca

A central focus of evolutionary developmental biology is to determine the developmental process determinants of evolvability for specific developmental systems and taxonomic groups. In mammals, more is now known about the developmental genetics of the mouse than any other species. This creates a huge opportunity to use this model organism to test evolutionary developmental hypotheses of relevance to mammals in general. However, there is currently little agreement on how to integrate experimental developmental genetics on specific model organism with comparative biology. In our work, we approach this issue using a �middle-out� or developmental process focused framework. This approach focuses on higher levels of the developmental hierarchy such as pathways and processes. Development funnels the vast amount of variation at the molecular level through definable numbers of developmental pathways which influence smaller numbers of developmental processes which, in turn, often have tractable relationships with fairly restricted sets of phenotypic outcomes. We argue that understanding this relationship between developmental processes and phenotypic outcomes is a key step in unraveling the developmental-genetic basis for both evolvability and patterns of phenotypic variation. The results of such studies provide a larger framework within which to contextualize the massive amounts of data generated by ongoing studies on gene-specific effects on the phenotype and the dissection of the genetic networks that control or regulate normal and abnormal development. Using examples from our ongoing work, we illustrate how mouse models can inform our understanding of the evolutionary developmental biology of the mammalian skull.