Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13
Bioinformatics for Evolutionary
Developmental Biology
Marc Robinson-Rechavi
1. Introduction
Evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”) has emerged as one of
the most exciting areas of biology. It is providing, for the first time, some
answers to long-standing questions, such as the origin of novelty, sources
of phenotypic variation, or the relationships between diverse animal body
plans. It is also forcing us to reconsider apparently known answers, such
as the relation between microevolution and macroevolution or the defi-
nition of homology.
1-6
In addition to developmental and evolutionary
biology, diverse fields of research have contributed to this success as well,
including classical zoology, paleontology, and molecular genetics.
7,8
Most
recently, genome projects from diverse organisms have also provided new
insight into the evolution of developmentally important genes.
9-12
Thus, evo-devo is by its very nature an interdisciplinary science.
In this chapter, we explore the interface with another interdisciplinary
field, bioinformatics. While some bioinformatic studies have implications
for evo-devo, and some evo-devo studies (especially the analysis of
genome sequences) make use of bioinformatics, this interface has been
rather neglected up to now
(
see also Mabee
13
).
The study of whole-genome duplication is one field of evo-devo in
which the use of bioinformatics can be (extremely) helpful. Although
suggestions of the importance of duplication in evolution have been
355
