What Salamander Biologists Have Taught Us About Evo-devo

Abstract

This chapter argues that historical and philosophical studies of David Wake’s 50-year investigation of the salamanders (Order Caudata) reveal a sustained effort to demonstrate the continuing value of taxon-centered research as opposed to or distinct from model organism research. Wake is an evolutionary morphologist involved in the emergence of Evo-devo and co-organizer of the 1981 Dahlem conference on Evolution and Development. He developed a distinctive practice of extrapolating “lessons” as well as results from his taxon-focused research on salamanders. Some of Wake’s contributions to the emergence and conceptual development of Evo-devo are characterized in terms of lessons learned from his use of the salamanders as a “model taxon.” Model taxa are intended to be monophyletic clades in which the whole clade constitutes the model, in contrast to model or experimental organisms, which are species used as models.