Background: The
realization that evolution results from successive alterations
of ontogeny was reasserted and popularized by Gould in
this late 1970s elaboration of heterochrony. Although
animal centered, Gould’s discussion of changes
in the relative rates and timing of developmental events
is equally applicable to plants, and it lays the groundwork
for subsequent hypotheses of plant phylogeny (e.g., Iltis,
1983; Rothwell, 1987).
From a paleontological perspective, where evolutionary
changes traditionally are inferred from transformational
series of morphologies that occur in successively younger
rock layers (Zimmermann, 1959), radical changes in
morphology that lack intermediates may be explained
by heterochronic
processes.
Hugh H. Iltis. 1983. From
Teosinte to Maize: The catastrophic sexual transmutation.
Science 222(4626): 886-894.
article at JSTOR
Gar W.
Rothwell. 1987. The role of development in plant phylogeny:
a paleobotanical perspective. Review of
Palaeobotany and
Palynology 50: 97-114. abstract (pdf
available from ScienceDirect at this link).
W. Zimmermann.
1959. Die Phylogenie
der Pflanzen: Ein Überblick über Tatsachen und
Probleme. Jena, Germany; G. Fischer, 1930. 452p. (2d ed.,
Stuttgart, Germany; G. Fischer, 1959. 777p.)
submitted by: Gar
Rothwell
