During the past 40 years great progress have been made in understanding the functional basis of anatomical diversity of organisms. More recently, researchers have begun to unravel the genetic and developmental basis of anatomical structures. To understand evolutionary transformations, one needs to analyze changes at genetic, developmental, and phenotypic levels, as well as the integration between these levels. This requires the construction of genetic, developmental and functional/selectional scenarios. Current interest focuses on genetic and functional/selectional scenarios. Developmental scenarios that convincingly link genetic and functional/selectional scenarios are scarce, but see Beldade et al. 2002 for an example). It is essential to include knowledge of developmental processes for a continued integration of developmental genetics and morphology. Most morphological structures develop under the influence of many genes. Therefore, to comprehend the evolution of the development of these structures, an understanding is needed of how the involved genes interact, directly or epigenetically, in steering morphogenetic patterning. The symposium and accompanying contributed paper and poster sessions will provide a strong stimulus for integrative studies that link developmental biology, genetics and functional morphology. Intellectual Merits: There is a wide gap between what is known about the activity of genes and their role in morphogenesis. Therefore, we perceive an urgent need to facilitate communication among geneticists, developmental biologists and morphologists. The symposium and associated activities (contributed paper and poster sessions) will provide important opportunities for scientists with these two approaches to learn how their different perspectives and methodologies can be used to broaden interpretations and generate more robust and testable hypotheses that will shed light on the evolution of vertebrate structure. Broader Impacts: The symposium and associated activities (contributed paper and poster sessions) will be held at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, a well-established international meeting that attracts a broad spectrum of biologists who are interested in interdisciplinary approaches. Symposium papers will be published in Integrative and Comparative Biology.
