Rudolf A. Raff
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USARudy Raff´s interests lie in the synthesis of evolutionary and developmental biology (evo-devo). Much of his research and writings have dealt with this enterprise. He wrote two books on the evo-devo synthesis, Embryos, Genes, and Evolution (with Thomas Kaufman) in 1983, and The Shape of Life in 1996. He is a founding editor of the journal Evolution & Development. His research has involved the use of molecular systematics in metazoan evolution, origins of morphological novelties, and the origins of animal body plans. Currently work addresses the evolution of developmental processes in early development, the origins of marine larvae from both developmental and paleobiological perspectives. Most of his experimental work in evo-devo has been done with the Australian direct-developing sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma, which has undergone a radical and rapid evolutionary change in ontogeny. This work has been done at Indiana University and the University of Sydney in collaboration with Elizabeth Raff. They also have begun an experimental approach to understanding the fossils of the earliest embryos that focuses on the cellular and microbial processes that allowed the fossilization of embryos early in the history of metazoan evolution.
ABSTRACTRudolf and Elizabeth Raff: Darwin's dilemma and the birth of evo-devo
The use of larval features became an important of phylogenetic studies in the decades following Darwin, but then (with a few notable exceptions) faded as developmental biology considered new problems. A modern science of evo-devo began in the 1970s with renewed interest in how development influenced evolution. This reflected a new synthesis of comparative, developmental, genetic, paleontological, and evolutionary themes. The new field received its impetus from the incorporation of new experimental organisms and approaches from developmental biology, including the discovery that the developmental regulatory genes are widely distributed among animal phyla.
I will outline the origins of Evo-Devo as well as discuss the role of developmental studies of the rapid and dramatic evolution among living marine embryos and larvae and the light they throw on the origins of the first metazoans and their development.
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