Annelida is an ecologically and morphologically diverse phylum within the Lophotrochozoa
whose members occupy a wide range of environments and show diverse life styles. The …

The gut offers a complex but rich organ system to study visceral pattern formation. The gut is
an early evolutionary advance. Data supports that the molecular controls of gut pattern …

Indirect development with an intermediate larva exists in all major animal lineages, which
makes larvae central to most scenarios of animal evolution,,,,,,,,–. Yet how larvae evolved …

The goal of comparative developmental biology is identifying mechanistic differences in
embryonic development between different taxa and how these evolutionary changes have …

Platynereis dumerilii, a marine polychaetous annelid with indirect development, can be
continuously bred in the laboratory. Here, we describe its spectacular reproduction and …

The long held view that annelids and arthropods are closely related (Articulata) has been
challenged recently by phylogenetic analyses using molecular data. The outcome of these …

The bilaterian animals are divided into three great branches: the Deuterostomia, Ecdysozoa,
and Lophotrochozoa. The evolution of developmental mechanisms is less studied in the …

Hox genes define regional identities along the anterior–posterior axis in many animals. In a
number of species, Hox genes are clustered in the genome, and the relative order of genes …

The evolutionary origins of the chordate central nervous system remain uncertain.
Conclusions drawn from classical morphological comparisons and from a broad range of …

Temporal collinearity is often considered the main force preserving Hox gene clusters in
animal genomes. Studies that combine genomic and gene expression data are scarce …