Presentation
Natural selection explains how certain forms are either preserved or eliminated, depending on their adaptations to their environments and natural conditions. But how are these different forms initially produced? What is the nature of natural variation? It is during their development that animals can deviate from their expected trajectories and thus produce new forms that may eventually become fixed due to their adaptive potential. It is therefore in the study of the mechanisms of embryonic development and their modifications that the answers to the question of animal variation lie. Over the past 30 years, with the advent of genome sequencing, the link between these mechanisms and our DNA has become clear, opening up a new field of study that seeks to identify the foundations of these evolutionary changes within our genetic material. This year’s symposium takes stock of these advances by presenting several notable examples.
The symposium is in English.