Barriers at the Intersection of Development, Ecology, and Evolution

摘要

Specialization and diverse questions combine to advance and fragment biological research. Fragmentation results from different questions of the same system, such as the separation of mechanist and adaptationist questions about the evolution of development. Examples are studies of persistence of unicellular stages in life histories and studies of divergence in durations of cell cycles. Because similar questions receive different answers from different organisms, a focus on a single system can give an illusion of generality while obscuring distinctive features. The evolution of development and dispersal differ in terrestrial and marine environments, but biases in citation and publication obscure peculiarities of the terrestrial environment. Pressures for specialization include high rates of publication, the comfort of expertise, an assured audience, the convenience of some systems, and nonscientists' priorities for funding, but there are also several ways, without impractical effort, for us to consider more kinds of questions and to place our results in a wider context.