In this review, we discuss modularity and hierarchy in biological systems. We review
examples from protein structure, genetics, and biological networks of modular partitioning of …

Highlights•Robustness relates to mutations having minimal effects on structure and
function.•Innovability means that beneficial functional changes are induced by few …

Abstract Development introduces structured correlations among traits that may constrain or
bias the distribution of phenotypes produced. Moreover, when suitable heritable variation …

One of the most intriguing questions in evolution is how organisms exhibit suitable
phenotypic variation to rapidly adapt in novel selective environments. Such variability is …

Collective intelligence and individual intelligence are usually considered to be
fundamentally different. Individual intelligence is uncontroversial. It occurs in organisms with …

Bow-tie or hourglass structure is a common architectural feature found in many biological
systems. A bow-tie in a multi-layered structure occurs when intermediate layers have much …

The mechanisms of variation, selection and inheritance, on which evolution by natural
selection depends, are not fixed over evolutionary time. Current evolutionary biology is …

A major challenge in systems biology is to understand the relationship between a circuit's
structure and its function, but how is this relationship affected if the circuit must perform …

A major goal of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is to understand how
multicellular body plans of increasing complexity have evolved, and how the corresponding …

A crucial step in several major evolutionary transitions is the division of labor between
components of the emerging higher-level evolutionary unit. Examples include the separation …