Morphological evolution in sea urchin development: hybrids provide insights into the pace of evolution

Hybridisations between related species with divergent ontogenies can provide insights into the bases for evolutionary change in development. One example of such hybridisations involves sea urchin species that exhibit either standard larval (pluteal) stages or those that develop directly from embryo to adult without an intervening feeding larval stage. In such crosses, pluteal features were found to be restored in fertilisations of the eggs of some direct developing sea urchins (Heliocidaris erythrogramma) with the sperm of closely (Heliocidaris tuberculata) and distantly (Pseudoboletia maculata) related species with feeding larvae. Such results can be argued to support the punctuated equilibrium model-conservation in pluteal regulatory systems and a comparatively rapid switch to direct development in evolution.1,2 Generation of hybrids between distantly related direct developers may, however, indicate evolutionary convergence. The 'rescue' of pluteal features by paternal genomes may require maternal factors from H. erythrogramma because the larva of this species has pluteal features. In contrast, pluteal features were not restored in hybridisations with the eggs of Holopneustes purpurescens, which lacks pluteal features. How much of pluteal development can be lost before it cannot be rescued in such crosses? The answer awaits hybridisations among indirect and direct developing sea urchins differing in developmental phenotype, in parallel with investigations of the genetic programs involved.