Valenzuela N
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA.
Sex Dev. 2008;2(2):64-72. doi: 10.1159/000129691. Epub 2008 Jun 20.
The evolution of sex had profound consequences for life on earth as it brought about the origin of males and females. Yet understanding the amazing variety of mechanisms employed by organisms to produce males and females has evaded scientific explanation. Developmental biology provides essential insight to understand how the sexes are formed, and how the regulatory network underlying sexual development changes over evolutionary time. This is a critical step in revealing why the diversity of mechanisms arose in the first place. Here I present significant reciprocal contributions made by evolutionary genetics and developmental biology that bear on this question. In particular, I explore how changes in the timing of events during development can be viewed as heterochronic changes that alleviate the strong selection on the master trigger of male and female sexual development, enabling the evolutionary transitions between genotypic and environmental sex determination.
性别的进化对地球上的生命产生了深远影响，因为它带来了雄性和雌性的起源。然而，要理解生物体用于产生雄性和雌性的惊人多样的机制，科学解释一直未能达成。发育生物学为理解性别如何形成以及性发育背后的调控网络如何在进化时间中发生变化提供了重要见解。这是揭示为何最初会出现机制多样性的关键一步。在此，我阐述了进化遗传学和发育生物学在这个问题上所做出的重大相互贡献。特别地，我探讨了发育过程中事件发生时间的变化如何被视为异时性变化，这些变化减轻了对雄性和雌性性别发育主要触发因素的强烈选择，从而实现了基因型性别决定和环境性别决定之间的进化转变。
