A study of the diversity of animal body plans finds that the development of life until the Cambrian period included a wide range of designs and that the aggregates of forms seen in modern species are remnants of the initial range, with now-extinct branches of the animal kingdom representing the original diversity; the study suggests that animal biodiversity has expanded episodically to the present day, in contrast to theories of a Cambrian explosion, and an increasing repertoire of regulatory genes correlated with increasing diversity in forms.
###
Article #18-10575: "Evolution of metazoan morphological disparity," by Bradley Deline et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Philip C. J. Donoghue, University of Bristol, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44 117 3941209; e-mail: <Phil.Donoghue@bristol.ac.uk>