Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, School of Marine Science and Engineering, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK.
Respir Physiol Neurobiol. 2011 Aug 31;178(1):3-12. doi: 10.1016/j.resp.2011.06.005. Epub 2011 Jun 15.
The investigation of the altered timing of developmental events is key to understanding evolution. Most empirical investigations of event timing are biased towards studying morphological variation. Recent reviews, however, have attempted to marshal the evidence for the importance of altered timing of physiological events, focusing on such timing shifts between species (physiological heterochrony) and within species (physiological heterokairy). Here we update these reviews. We firstly take a comparative developmental physiology approach to explore how recent studies have furthered our understanding of the links between physiological event timing shifts at different levels of biological organisation (i.e. individual, population and species). The alternative strategy of concentrating effort on one model system is then considered, in particular focussing on substantial recent advances in our understanding of fetal haemoglobin expression in humans. We conclude that, while the fetal haemoglobin model may be appropriate as a model for some questions, it can never be the model study system. We also discuss the different quantitative analyses available for investigating event timing alterations. We consider the efficacy of the terms heterochrony and heterokairy.
研究发育事件时间变化是理解进化的关键。大多数关于事件时间的经验研究都偏向于研究形态变化。然而，最近的综述试图整理证据，强调生理事件时间变化的重要性，重点关注物种间（生理异时性）和物种内（生理异态性）的时间变化。在这里，我们更新了这些综述。我们首先采用比较发育生理学的方法来探讨最近的研究如何进一步加深我们对不同层次的生物组织（即个体、种群和物种）之间生理事件时间变化之间联系的理解。然后考虑了另一种策略，即集中精力研究一个模型系统，特别是特别关注人类胎儿血红蛋白表达理解方面的重大最新进展。我们的结论是，虽然胎儿血红蛋白模型可能适合某些问题，但它永远不可能成为模型研究系统。我们还讨论了用于研究事件时间变化的不同定量分析方法。我们考虑了异时性和异态性这两个术语的有效性。
