- Padova, Italy
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Reproduction and Biology
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Reproduction and Biology
Research Interests:
Evolutionary developmental biology, or 'evo-devo', is the study of the relationship between evolution and development. Dealing specifically with the generative mechanisms of organismal form, evo-devo goes straight to the core of... more
Evolutionary developmental biology, or 'evo-devo', is the study of the relationship between evolution and development. Dealing specifically with the generative mechanisms of organismal form, evo-devo goes straight to the core of the developmental origin of variation, the raw material on which natural selection (and random drift) can work. Evolving Pathways brings together contributions that represent a diversity of approaches. Topics range from developmental genetics to comparative morphology of animals and plants alike, and also include botany and palaeontology, two disciplines for which the potential to be examined from an evo-devo perspective has largely been ignored until now. Researchers and graduate students will find this book a valuable overview of current research as we begin to fill a major gap in our perception of evolutionary change.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Pereira, Luis A., Minelli, Alessandro, Uliana, Marco (2004): The species of Schendylops Cook, 1899 (Chilopoda, Geophilomorpha, Schendylidae) from Madagascar. Zoosystema 26 (4): 727-752, DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4525277
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
As a contribution to investigate the interspecific diversity in the large genus Mecistocephalus Newport, 1843 with respect to these centipedes’ predatorial role in soil tropical communities, we compared the patterns of maxillipede... more
As a contribution to investigate the interspecific diversity in the large genus Mecistocephalus Newport, 1843 with respect to these centipedes’ predatorial role in soil tropical communities, we compared the patterns of maxillipede denticles in 32 species of the genus, and studied all published relevant information. All Mecistocephalus species share a conservative pattern of six distinct denticles on the mesal side of the four articles of each maxillipede. Current views on centipede phylogeny suggest that the basic pattern in Mecistocephalus originated from an ancestral array of fewer denticles, by addition of other denticles on the first and fourth articles of the maxillipede. These patterns are not affected by sexual dimorphism, and intraspecific variation for denticle position, size and shape is negligible, but for minor allometry determining a relative increase of the size of some denticles with respect to the maxillipedes during growth. Species differ mainly in size, shape, and ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In a recent paper in the journal Arthropod Structure and Development, Alexey A. Polilov has shown that 95% of the ca. 4,600 neurons forming the brain of a tiny parasitoid wasp are anucleate. This amazing correlate of miniaturization is... more
In a recent paper in the journal Arthropod Structure and Development, Alexey A. Polilov has shown that 95% of the ca. 4,600 neurons forming the brain of a tiny parasitoid wasp are anucleate. This amazing correlate of miniaturization is just one of the latest unexpected discoveries in arthropod biology, one of those whose relevance goes far beyond the limits of the largest of living phyla. Such discoveries are of the highest general interest for biology and serve to remind us that arthropods are indeed, an unparalleled source of facts and inspiration for biologists of every brand.
Research Interests:
Can we describe all species on Earth before they disappear? We argue that this is possible only by endowing taxonomy with professional manpower and appropriate material resources as required by big science. Contrary to Costello et al.’s... more
Can we describe all species on Earth before they disappear? We argue that this is possible only by endowing taxonomy with professional manpower and appropriate material resources as required by big science. Contrary to Costello et al.’s (CMS) statements, taxonomy is not an easy discipline accessible to all through a smartphone. It requires exhaustive training and long familiarity with field, specimens and literature. CMS’s argument is framed in terms of species numbers, but different, non-overlapping species concepts apply to bacteria, brambles and birds: “the species” as common unit of biodiversity does not exist. Even ignoring this conceptual and semantic issue, CMS’s estimates of undescribed biodiversity and extinction rates are based on insufficient evidence and poorly supported models. Biodiversity hotspots steadily emerge in geographic areas where diversity was long assumed to be largely described. The number of species, whatever species are, cannot be easily estimated because...
Can we describe all species on Earth before they disappear? We argue that this is possible only by endowing taxonomy with professional manpower and appropriate material resources as required by big science. Contrary to Costello et al.’s... more
Can we describe all species on Earth before they disappear? We argue that this is possible only by endowing taxonomy with professional manpower and appropriate material resources as required by big science. Contrary to Costello et al.’s (CMS) statements, taxonomy is not an easy discipline accessible to all through a smartphone. It requires exhaustive training and long familiarity with field, specimens and literature. CMS’s argument is framed in terms of species numbers, but different, non-overlapping species concepts apply to bacteria, brambles and birds: “the species” as common unit of biodiversity does not exist. Even ignoring this conceptual and semantic issue, CMS’s estimates of undescribed biodiversity and extinction rates are based on insufficient evidence and poorly supported models. Biodiversity hotspots steadily emerge in geographic areas where diversity was long assumed to be largely described. The number of species, whatever species are, cannot be easily estimated because...
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT According to a well-consolidated tradition, the body of arthropods is described in terms of segments and tagmata. Even the oldest names for these animals, Aristotle’s έντομα [entoma, internally (sub)divided] and Linnaeus’ Latin... more
ABSTRACT According to a well-consolidated tradition, the body of arthropods is described in terms of segments and tagmata. Even the oldest names for these animals, Aristotle’s έντομα [entoma, internally (sub)divided] and Linnaeus’ Latin equivalent Insecta, now restricted to one of the major arthropod subgroups, already referred to the modular organization of the body. In the idealistic perspective of the past, this trait, more than the presence of articulated appendages to which the current name of arthropods refers, was considered the defining attribute for the body plan of these animals.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
SUMMARY Saltational changes in segment numbers have likely occurred in arthropod evolution, especially if mechanisms of segment formation involve a multiplicative phase, as recently suggested in the evo‐devo literature. Here we provide... more
SUMMARY Saltational changes in segment numbers have likely occurred in arthropod evolution, especially if mechanisms of segment formation involve a multiplicative phase, as recently suggested in the evo‐devo literature. Here we provide for the first time evidence of major phenotypic saltation in the evolution of segment number in a lineage of centipedes, with a newly discovered species of scolopender having segment numbers duplicated with respect to its closest relatives, and to all the remaining 700+ species of Scolopendromorpha known to date.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Endogeophilus ichnusae gen. et sp. nov. (Chilopoda: Geophilidae sensu stricto) is described based on three specimens from two localities in south-western Sardinia, examined by light and scanning electron microscopy. The new centipede... more
Endogeophilus ichnusae gen. et sp. nov. (Chilopoda: Geophilidae sensu stricto) is described based on three specimens from two localities in south-western Sardinia, examined by light and scanning electron microscopy. The new centipede resembles the rare Ibero-Pyrenean genus Galliophilus Ribaut & Brolemann, 1927 in some features, especially in the forcipular segment, and the temperate European species Geophilus electricus (Linnaeus, 1758) in other features, especially in the ultimate leg-bearing segment. However, the true affinities of E. ichnusae gen. et sp. nov. are uncertain, because the new species departs significantly from the majority of geophilids for the higher number of legs (91–107 pairs in the specimens examined), the slender trunk segments (the sternites being longer than wide), the relatively stout legs (the tarsus being only about twice as long as wide) and the very short setae (≤ 15 mm) scattered on the body surface. All these features are probably derived and suggest ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In order to maximize the utility of future studies of trilobite ontogeny, we propose a set of standard practices that relate to the collection, nomenclature, description, depiction, and interpretation of ontogenetic series inferred from... more
In order to maximize the utility of future studies of trilobite ontogeny, we propose a set of standard practices that relate to the collection, nomenclature, description, depiction, and interpretation of ontogenetic series inferred from articulated specimens belonging to individual species. In some cases, these suggestions may also apply to ontogenetic studies of other fossilized taxa.
Research Interests: Evolutionary Biology, Geology, Paleontology, Biology, Ecology, and 4 moreOntogeny, Trilobite, Depiction, and Taxon
Current awareness of gene expression patterns and developmental mechanisms involved in the outgrowth and patterning of animal appendages contributes to our understanding of the origin and evolution of these body parts. Nevertheless, this... more
Current awareness of gene expression patterns and developmental mechanisms involved in the outgrowth and patterning of animal appendages contributes to our understanding of the origin and evolution of these body parts. Nevertheless, this vision needs to be complemented by a new adequate comparative framework, in the context of a factorial notion of homology. It may even be profitable to categorize as appendages also gut diverticula, body ingrowths and 'virtual appendages' such as the eye spots on butterfly wings. Another unwarranted framework is the Cartesian co-ordinate system onto which the appendages are currently described and where it is supposed that one patterning system exists for each separate Cartesian axis. It may be justified, instead, to look for correspondences between the appendages and the main body axis of the same animal, as the latter might be the source of the growth and patterning mechanisms which gave rise to the former. This hypothesis of axis paramorp...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Of the two centipede orders that complete segmentation during embryogenesis, most species belonging to Geophilomorpha have an intraspecifically variable number of trunk segments, whereas those of the Scolopendromorpha have been assumed to... more
Of the two centipede orders that complete segmentation during embryogenesis, most species belonging to Geophilomorpha have an intraspecifically variable number of trunk segments, whereas those of the Scolopendromorpha have been assumed to have a fixed segment number, with minor variation (21 or 23 segments) across the group as a whole. Trunk segment numbers are used as a taxonomic character as high as the familial or subordinal level in Scolopendromorpha. The first known instance of variability in trunk segment numbers within a scolopendromorph species has recently been proposed for the Brazilian Scolopendropsis bahiensis (Brandt, 1841), which has either 21 or 23 segments in different parts of its geographic range. Here we document a closely related scolopendrid from Tocantins State, central Brazil, Scolopendropsis duplicata n. sp., which differs from S. bahiensis in having either 39 or 43 segments. This unique segment count is incorporated into a revised diagnosis of the order Scol...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Zoology, Biology, Medicine, Arthropod, Evolvability, and 4 moreScaling, Miniaturization, Scaling Law, and Modular Design
The basic mechanism by which the antennal flagellum is subdivided into flagellomeres is probably the same in all insects, irrespective of whether the process occurs in the embryo, in the eye/antenna imaginal disc, or through a series of... more
The basic mechanism by which the antennal flagellum is subdivided into flagellomeres is probably the same in all insects, irrespective of whether the process occurs in the embryo, in the eye/antenna imaginal disc, or through a series of post-embryonic increments punctuated by moults. The ultimate origin of (all?) flagellomeres is the first antennomere following the pedicel, from which split off in apical direction new primary flagellomeres, each of which is eventually the source of secondary flagellomeres, according to specific spatial and temporal patterns subject to heterochrony. Only a detailed knowledge of the underlying segmentation processes could provide the ultimate background for determining positional homology between flagellomeres of two antennae with different number of antennomeres. The antennae of the Heteroptera are likely re-segmented, as their second antennomere seems to include a flagellar component. The larval antennae of the holometabolans are temporal serial hom...
Research Interests:
Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) suggests a distinction between modular and systemic variation. In the case of modular change, the conservation of the overall structure helps recognizing affinities, while a single, fast... more
Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) suggests a distinction between modular and systemic variation. In the case of modular change, the conservation of the overall structure helps recognizing affinities, while a single, fast evolving module is likely to produce a bonanza for the taxonomist, while systemic changes produce strongly deviating morphologies that cause problems in tracing homologies. Similarly, changes affecting the whole life cycle are more challenging than those limited to one stage. Developmental modularity is a precondition for heterochrony. Analyzing a matrix of morphological data for paedomorphic taxa requires special care. It is, however, possible to extract phylogenetic signal from heterochronic patterns. The taxonomist should pay attention to the intricacies of the genotype→phenotype map. When using genetic data to infer phylogeny, a comparison of gene sequences is just a first step. To bridge the gap between genes and morphology we should consider the sp...
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT