Germ plasmGerm plasm (Keimplasma) is a biological concept developed in the 19th century by the German biologist August Weismann. It states that heritable information is transmitted only by germ cells in the gonads (ovaries and testes), not by somatic cells. The related idea that information cannot pass from somatic cells to the germ line, contrary to Lamarckism, is called the Weismann barrier. To some extent this theory anticipated the development of modern genetics.
Lyssenkismevignette|Lyssenko au Kremlin en 1935. Derrière lui, on voit (de gauche à droite) Stanislav Kossior, Anastas Mikoyan, Andreï Andreïev et Joseph Staline. Le lyssenkisme (en Лысе́нковщина) est une politique agricole formulée en Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques (URSS) par Trofim Lyssenko et ses successeurs à partir de la fin des années 1920, puis mise en application au cours des années 1930 lorsque Lyssenko, soutenu par les autorités, prend la tête de l'. Cette politique a été maintenue officiellement jusqu'en 1964.
Évolvabilitévignette|Profil de fitness trans-environment avec deux caractères montrant le degré de sélectabilité d'un phénotype selon un gradient d'expression des caractères en jeu. L’évolvabilité, ou évoluabilité, ou encore adaptabilité évolutionnaire, est un concept majeur de la biologie évolutive du développement, qui désigne la capacité d’un organisme à générer de la variation phénotypique héritable en réduisant les mutations désavantageuses ou létales. En d’autres termes, certains changements génétiques seront avantagés chez un organisme vivant grâce à différents processus.
Assimilation génétiqueL’assimilation génétique est un processus par lequel un phénotype (état de caractère observable), originellement induit en réponse à des conditions environnementales particulières, devient encodé, après plusieurs générations, dans le génome (le génotype) par sélection naturelle ou sélection artificielle. Le nouveau phénotype, apparu en réponse à un signal environnemental, devient « constitutif », c’est-à-dire qu’il apparaît sans l’influence préalable du déclencheur initial.
Erasmus DarwinErasmus Darwin (, Elston, Nottingham – , Breadsall, Derby) est un poète, médecin, botaniste et inventeur britannique. 70 ans avant les travaux de son petit-fils Charles Darwin , il amorce de façon significative les réflexions sur l'origine de la vie et son évolution. Médecin, il exerce son art avec un grand succès à Lichfield.
Teleology in biologyTeleology in biology is the use of the language of goal-directedness in accounts of evolutionary adaptation, which some biologists and philosophers of science find problematic. The term teleonomy has also been proposed. Before Darwin, organisms were seen as existing because God had designed and created them; their features such as eyes were taken by natural theology to have been made to enable them to carry out their functions, such as seeing.
Evo-devo gene toolkitThe evo-devo gene toolkit is the small subset of genes in an organism's genome whose products control the organism's embryonic development. Toolkit genes are central to the synthesis of molecular genetics, palaeontology, evolution and developmental biology in the science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Many of them are ancient and highly conserved among animal phyla. Toolkit genes are highly conserved among phyla, meaning that they are ancient, dating back to the last common ancestor of bilaterian animals.
Tempo and Mode in EvolutionTempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) was George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and natural selection. Simpson argued that the microevolution of population genetics was sufficient in itself to explain the patterns of macroevolution observed by paleontology. Simpson also highlighted the distinction between tempo and mode. "Tempo" encompasses "evolutionary rates ...
Deep homologyIn evolutionary developmental biology, the concept of deep homology is used to describe cases where growth and differentiation processes are governed by genetic mechanisms that are homologous and deeply conserved across a wide range of species. In 1822, the French zoologist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire dissected a crayfish, discovering that its body is organised like a vertebrate's, but inverted belly to back (dorsoventrally): I just found that all the soft organs, that is to say, the principal organs of life are found in crustaceans, and so in insects, in the same order, in the same relationships and with the same arrangement as their analogues in the high vertebrate animals .
Experiments on Plant Hybridization"Experiments on Plant Hybridization" (German: "Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden") is a seminal paper written in 1865 and published in 1866 by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar considered to be the founder of modern genetics. The paper was the result after years spent studying genetic traits in Pisum sativum, the pea plant. In his paper, Mendel compared 7 pairs of discrete traits found in a pea plant: Through experimentation, Mendel discovered that one inheritable trait would invariably be dominant to its recessive alternative.
