Aguinaldo et al. (1997) and the birth of Evo/Devo

Abstract

This work by Aguinaldo and colleagues is foundational for the modern field of Evo-Devo in multiple respects. 1) By using DNA sequence comparisons to reconstruct animal phylogeny, they broke free of the inescapably circular logic inherent in more than 100 years’ worth of efforts in which morphological comparisons were used to build trees that were then used to interpret morphological comparisons. 2) By intentionally choosing slowly evolving sequences, they avoided the pitfalls of long branch attraction. 3) As a result, they began to unveil the previously unappreciated extent of evolutionary developmental plasticity, rejecting the Articulata Hypothesis and establishing the Ecdysozoa as a protostome superphylum including nematodes, arthropods and allied molting taxa.