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Germ Layer Evolution: Using Novel Approaches to Address a Classic Evolutionary Embryological Problem

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Old Questions and Young Approaches to Animal Evolution

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Abstract

The genesis of gastrulation, the embryological process that results in the segregation of primary germ layers, was arguably a key evolutionary innovation that enabled metazoan diversification. The developmental mechanisms that induced germ layer specification during gastrulation are not fully understood, but this process has fascinated embryologists for centuries. The early attempts by descriptive embryologists to understand germ layer specification and to put it into an evolutionary framework resulted in the inception of the germ layer theory. Over the years, the germ layer theory was modified to accommodate new knowledge generated through embryological studies on a variety of different animals. However, with new empirical data, certain limitations of the germ layer theory were identified, and based on these limitations, the validity of the theory was put into question. Despite its limitations, the ideas put forward by the early embryologists who came up with the germ layer theory are still being investigated using a variety of animal models and novel experimental approaches. This chapter attempts to provide a historical overview of the idea of germ layer evolution and to discuss how novel experimental approaches can shed light onto these old ideas and build on them to improve our understanding of germ layer evolution in particular and animal evolution in general.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors, José María Martín-Durán and Bruno C. Vellutini for the invitation to write this chapter and for the comments given by them and the reviewer, which helped to improve the manuscript.

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  1. Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Naveen Wijesena

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  1. Naveen Wijesena
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Correspondence to Naveen Wijesena .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    José M. Martín-Durán

  2. Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany

    Bruno C. Vellutini

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Wijesena, N. (2019). Germ Layer Evolution: Using Novel Approaches to Address a Classic Evolutionary Embryological Problem. In: Martín-Durán, J., Vellutini, B. (eds) Old Questions and Young Approaches to Animal Evolution. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18202-1_7

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