Why do animals have different life cycles?
Why do some animals develop directly, while others go through remarkable larval stages? Researchers at Queen Mary University offer new explanations.
Larvae or miniature adults
For more than a century, biologists have been asking why animals have different life cycles. Humans and most vertebrates develop directly into a fully formed but smaller adult. Many other animals, however, produce remarkably diverse intermediate forms known as larvae.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have, in a study published in Nature , discovered for the first time the mechanism that describes how an embryo transforms into a larva or a miniature version of an adult animal.study published in
The decisive factor is the genes involved in the formation of the trunk. Direct development is thought to have evolved later in many animal groups, including humans and most vertebrates.
Embryonic differentiation
Embryonic differentiation is the developmental process by which embryonic cells specialise and form various tissue structures. The process of embryonic differentiation is of critical importance for the normal development of animals. More on the topic of Environment and conservation.
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