Non-insect crustacean models in developmental genetics including an encomium to Parhyale hawaiensis

The impressive diversity of body plans, lifestyles and segmental specializations exhibited by crustaceans (barnacles, copepods, shrimps, crabs, lobsters and their kin) provides great material to address longstanding questions in evolutionary developmental biology. Recent advances in forward and reverse genetics and in imaging approaches applied in the amphipod Parhyale hawaiensis and other emerging crustacean model species have made it possible to probe the molecular and cellular basis of crustacean diversity. A number of biological and technical qualities like the slow tempo and holoblastic cleavage mode, the stereotypy of many cellular processes, the functional and morphological diversity of limbs along the body axis, and the availability of various experimental manipulations, have made Parhyale a powerful system to study normal development and regeneration.