Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41053789›Full record

ArticleEvoDevo2025

Galloanseran cranial development highlights exceptions to von Baer's laws.

Bassel Arnaout, Kaylen Brzezinski, Albert Chen, Benjamin Steventon, Daniel J Field

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in EvoDevo, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Bassel ArnaoutDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. ba419@cam.ac.uk.
Kaylen BrzezinskiDepartment of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Albert ChenDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Benjamin SteventonDepartment of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Daniel J FieldDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. djf70@cam.ac.uk.

Funding

UK Research and Innovation MR/X015130/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The remarkable morphological disparity of the animal kingdom is underpinned by changes in embryonic development across the tree of life; as such, deciphering evolutionary patterns of developmental divergence depends on investigations of different species across a range of comparable developmental stages. Among the most influential ideas regarding such developmental divergences are von Baer's Laws of Development and Haeckel's Theory of Recapitulation. Here, we assess several predictions following from these ideas at the tissue-level by comparing skull osteogenesis in representatives of the bird clade Galloanserae. We investigated high-resolution µCT scans of embryonic series for four galloanseran species: chickens and quails, representing Galliformes (landfowl), and ducks and geese, representing Anseriformes (waterfowl). To compare skull osteogenesis across our taxon sample, we devised a skull-specific staging system based on ossification sequences to discretise the process into five stages. During skull osteogenesis, we found that the location of the onset of ossification within each element and the direction of ossification progression were the same in all species in our sample, implying a conserved developmental programme for induction and ossification progression across Galloanserae. Moreover, we found that the appearance of synapomorphies diagnostic of broader clades often overlapped with species-specific ones during osteogenesis. Indeed, many diagnostic features of deep clades, such as osteological synapomorphies of the phylogenetically inclusive clade Galloanserae, appear at surprisingly late stages of development. These observations fail to support several predictions of von Baer's Laws of Development and Haeckel's Theory of Recapitulation, instead suggesting what we term a 'braiding' pattern of developmental divergence in which degrees of interspecific morphological similarity wax and wane during development as a result of the interplay between developmental constraints and phyletic variation.

Indexed as

AnseriformesCraniofacial developmentGalliformesHourglass modelSkullvon Baer’s laws

Identifiers

PMID41053789
PMCPMC12498436

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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.