The developmental basis for phenotypic variability in the vertebrate skeleton

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Natural selection acts on variation present at the level of the phenotype, but drives evolution through change at the level of the genotype. Importantly, these two levels are linked via organismal development but the correspondence of genotype to phenotype is highly structured and complex. Specifically, the translation of genetic into phenotypic variation is patterned by normal developmental processes in ways that profoundly influence the evolvability of complex phenotypes. Understanding how this patterning occurs, or the developmental basis for evolvability, is the fundamental question of evolutionary developmental biology. Our research program addresses this question by providing a mechanistic explanation of how genomic changes alter developmental processes to produce phenotypic variability in the vertebrate skeleton.