Introduction: Young Approaches to Animal Evolution

Abstract

Animals are fascinating in many ways. For centuries scientists have tried to understand animal evolution. How did animals first evolve? How are they related to one another? How is the genotype—the genetic information contained in their DNA—translated into form and function? How do embryonic cells build tissues and organs? What is the biological basis for animal diversity? This book, which stems from the symposium “Old questions, young approaches” that we organised during the sixth meeting of the European Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology, aims to capture how technical and conceptual advances in biology are providing a fresh view into these long-standing questions.