Written in stone: fossils, genes and evo–devo

Fossils give evo–devo a past. They inform phylogenetic trees to show the direction
of evolution of developmental features, and they can reveal ancient body plans. Fossils also
provide the primary data that are used to date past events, including divergence times
needed to estimate molecular clocks, which provide rates of developmental evolution.
Fossils can set boundaries for hypotheses that are generated from living developmental
systems, and for predictions of ancestral development and morphologies. Finally, although
fossils rarely yield data on developmental processes directly, informative examples occur of
extraordinary preservation of soft body parts, embryos and genomic information.

Tags: phylogenetics, review, JRI, fossils