Asymmetry - Where evolutionary and developmental genetics meet

Abstract

The mechanisms responsible for the fine tuning of development, where the wild-type phenotype is reproduced with high fidelity, are not well understood. The difficulty in approaching this problem is the identification of mutant phenotypes indicative of a defect in these fine-tuning control mechanisms. Evolutionary biologists have used asymmetry as a measure of developmental homeostasis. The rationale for this was that, since the same genome controls the development of the left and right sides of a bilaterally symmetrical organism, departures from symmetry can be used to measure genetic or environmental perturbations. This paper examines the relationship between asymmetry and resistance to org..