ReviewInterface focus2015
Forbidden phenotypes and the limits of evolution.
Review in Interface focus, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Uniqueness and predictability in evolution and the history of mollusks.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Mapping life's disparity and evolutionary constraints in a geometric complexity space.Science advances · 2026Article
- Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational Modularity in the Lunar Wrasse Skull.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- The structure of an ancient genotype-phenotype map shaped the functional evolution of a protein family.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- The structure of an ancient genotype-phenotype map shaped the functional evolution of a protein family.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Exceptional preservation of mid-Cretaceous marine arthropods and the evolution of novel forms via heterochrony.Science advances · 2019Article
- The shadow of the past: Convergence of young and old South American desert lizards as measured by head shape traits.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- From "the Worm" to "the Worms" and Back Again: The Evolutionary Developmental Biology of Nematodes.Genetics · 2018Review
- Approaches to Macroevolution: 1. General Concepts and Origin of Variation.Evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- Plant defences on land and in water: why are they so different?Annals of botany · 2016Review
- Replaying the tape of life in the twenty-first century.Interface focus · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evolution has produced an astonishing array of organisms, but does it have limits and, if so, how are these overcome and how have they changed over the course of time? Here, I review models for describing and explaining existing diversity, and then explore parts of the evolutionary tree that remain empty. In an analysis of 32 forbidden states among eukaryotes, identified in major clades and in the three great habitat realms of water, land and air, I argue that no phenotypic constraint is absolute, that most constraints reflect a limited time-energy budget available to individual organisms, that natural selection is ultimately responsible for both imposing and overcoming constraints, including those normally ascribed to developmental patterns of construction and phylogenetic conservatism, and that increases in adaptive versatility in major clades together with accompanying new ecological opportunities have eliminated many constraints. Phenotypes that were inaccessible during the Early Palaeozoic era have evolved during later periods while very few adaptive states have disappeared. The filling of phenotypic space has proceeded cumulatively in three overlapping phases characterized by diversification at the biochemical, morphological and cultural levels.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.