[The rate of development, temperature and genetic control]

The rate of poikilothermic animal development may be expressed quantitatively only with a specification of temperature at which this development occurs and on which this value depends. Therefore the species feature is not the rate of development itself but the character of its dependence upon the temperature and the range of temperature within which this development is possible. Obviously, the character of this dependence may be in principle expressed by an equation which functional form and parameters are inherited like all other features of the species. Therefore there should exist genes determining these parameters. Thus there is a one-to-one correspondence between the organism genetic apparatus, the rate of development and the temperature. The given article presents some theoretical and experimental approaches to the study of mechanisms of this correspondence.