Lemaire Patrick, Piette Jacques
Centre de Recherches de Biochimie Macromoléculaire. UMR 5237, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Montpellier, 1919 Route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier cedex 5, France
Open Biol. 2015 Jun;5(6):150053. doi: 10.1098/rsob.150053.
This review is a tribute to the remarkable contributions of Thomas Huxley to the biology of tunicates, the likely sister group of vertebrates. In 1851, the great biologist and philosopher published two landmark papers on pelagic tunicates in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. They were dedicated to the description of the adult anatomy and life cycle of thaliaceans and appendicularians, the pelagic relatives of ascidians. In the first part of this review, we discuss the novel anatomical observations and evolutionary hypotheses made by Huxley, which would have a lasting influence on tunicate biology. We also briefly comment on the more philosophical reflections of Huxley on individuality. In the second part, we stress the originality and relevance of past and future studies of tunicates in the resolution of major biological issues. In particular, we focus on the complex relationship between genotype and phenotype and the phenomenon of developmental system drift. We propose that more than 150 years after Huxley's papers, tunicate embryos are still worth studying in their own right, independently of their evolutionary proximity to vertebrates, as they provide original and crucial insights into the process of animal evolution. Tunicates are still at the forefront of biological research.
这篇综述是对托马斯·赫胥黎（Thomas Huxley）对被囊动物生物学所做杰出贡献的致敬，被囊动物可能是脊椎动物的姐妹类群。1851年，这位伟大的生物学家和哲学家在《皇家学会哲学学报》上发表了两篇关于远洋被囊动物的具有里程碑意义的论文。它们致力于描述海鞘类动物和尾海鞘纲动物（海鞘的远洋亲属）的成体解剖结构和生命周期。在本综述的第一部分，我们讨论了赫胥黎所做的新颖解剖学观察和进化假说，这些对被囊动物生物学产生了持久影响。我们还简要评论了赫胥黎对个体性的更多哲学思考。在第二部分，我们强调过去和未来对被囊动物的研究在解决主要生物学问题方面的原创性和相关性。特别是，我们关注基因型与表型之间的复杂关系以及发育系统漂变现象。我们提出，在赫胥黎的论文发表150多年后，被囊动物胚胎本身仍然值得研究，而不依赖于它们与脊椎动物在进化上的亲近关系，因为它们为动物进化过程提供了独特而关键的见解。被囊动物仍然处于生物学研究的前沿。
