Abstract
The development of the vertebrate limb is a hierarchical process of temporal and spatial tissue organization. We begin to understand its cellular and molecular properties, its links to the gene level, and, through the processes of pattern formation, its relationship to phenotypic patterns. In addition, however, a comprehensive theory of limb development must provide a mechanistic basis for evolutionary transformations of limb patterns and for the origin of individualized parts of the limb during vertebrate phylogeny. This paper examines the present concepts about limb development with regard to their capacity to accommodate phylogenetic transformations. Examples from our work on archosaur limb development and evolution are used to illustrate the patterns of transformation and the problems arising from an evolutionary perspective.
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Müller, G.B. (1991). Evolutionary Transformation of Limb Pattern: Heterochrony and Secondary Fusion. In: Hinchliffe, J.R., Hurle, J.M., Summerbell, D. (eds) Developmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Limb. NATO ASI Series, vol 205. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3310-8_50
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3310-8_50
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