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Evo-devo
by the Understanding Evolution team

Development is the process through which an embryo becomes an adult organism and eventually dies. Through development, an organism's genotype is expressed as a phenotype, exposing genes to the action of natural selection.

Studies of development are important to evolutionary biology for several reasons. This area of research can help us understand:

• evolutionary history
• constraints on evolutionary change
• major evolutionary change, and
• complexity.

	In this section we will explore these key questions: How does studying an organism’s development help us understand its evolutionary relationships? Does ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny? Why or why not? What is a developmental constraint? In what ways can evolutionary changes in the development of an organism affect its morphology? What are Hox genes, and what role do they play in evolution?