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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 14, 2025

Creating Avian Forebrain Chimeras to Assess Facial Development

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Published on: February 18, 2021

Morphological integration during postnatal ontogeny: implications for evolutionary biology.

Alex Hubbe^1,2, Fabio A Machado³, Diogo Melo⁴

¹Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution

|January 10, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Covariance patterns in mammalian development stabilize after weaning, suggesting evolutionary responses to selection are consistent throughout later postnatal ontogeny. This indicates developmental changes in covariance do not significantly alter evolutionary trajectories.

Keywords:

G-matrix P-matrix Marsupialia Placentalia development

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Developmental biology
Quantitative genetics

Background:

Understanding how phenotypic covariance evolves during development is crucial for evolutionary insights.
Mammalian cranial covariance patterns are known to change during ontogeny (development).
The impact of ontogenetic variation in covariance on evolutionary response to selection remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To quantify changes in covariance patterns during postnatal development.
To identify ontogenetic stages with the most significant covariance differences.
To assess if developmental covariance patterns share underlying processes with additive genetic covariance.

Main Methods:

Analysis of postnatal ontogenetic series in marsupials and placentals.
Comparison of phenotypic covariance matrices (P-matrices) across developmental stages.
Comparison of developmental P-matrices with adult P-matrices and additive genetic covariance matrices (G-matrices).

Main Results:

Covariance patterns were conserved from weaning onwards across all studied ontogenetic series.
Conserved covariance patterns likely share underlying processes with the additive genetic covariance matrix (G-matrix).
Developmental covariance patterns showed significant differences in early ontogeny but stabilized later.

Conclusions:

Phenotypic covariance patterns stabilize after weaning during postnatal ontogeny.
The processes shaping the additive genetic covariance matrix (G-matrix) likely also shape later developmental covariance.
Ontogenetic changes in covariance patterns are unlikely to significantly affect the net evolutionary response to selection after weaning.