Evolvability and Evolution of Diptera

Description:

This publication presents the first book-length exploration of phylo-evo-devo built around a single, extraordinarily diverse animal group. Integrating phylogeny, developmental biology, genetics, morphology, and fossils, the book examines how developmental systems shape evolutionary possibilities across multiple taxonomic levels and along the entire life cycle, from larva to adult.

Rather than focusing on adaptation and the survival of the fittest, this volume addresses a central question of evolutionary developmental biology: the arrival of the fittest. By analysing which changes are easy, difficult, or effectively impossible given a species’ developmental architecture, evolvability is placed at the heart of evolutionary explanation. Diptera offer an ideal case study, combining immense structural diversity, strong developmental modularity between larval and adult stages, and an unmatched depth of information available for model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster.

Bridging natural history and experimental developmental genetics, and re-examining classical and overlooked sources alongside modern data, this book offers a coherent and innovative framework for understanding evolutionary novelty, constraints, and disparity. It will be essential reading for evolutionary biologists, developmental biologists, and entomologists interested in how development channels the course of evolution.