Getting to Evo-Devo: Concepts and Challenges for Students Learning Evolutionary Developmental Biology

To examine how well biology majors have achieved the necessary foundation in evolution, numerous studies have examined how students learn natural selection. However, no studies to date have examined how students learn developmental aspects of evolution (evo-devo). Although evo-devo plays an increasing role in undergraduate biology curricula, we find that instruction often addresses development cursorily, with most of the treatment embedded within instruction on evolution. Based on results of surveys and interviews with students, we suggest that teaching core concepts (CCs) within a framework that integrates supporting concepts (SCs) from both evolutionary and developmental biology can improve evo-devo instruction. We articulate CCs, SCs, and foundational concepts (FCs) that provide an integrative framework to help students master evo-devo concepts and to help educators address specific conceptual difficulties their students have with evo-devo. We then identify the difficulties that undergraduates have with these concepts. Most of these difficulties are of two types: those that are ubiquitous among students in all areas of biology and those that stem from an inadequate understanding of FCs from developmental, cell, and molecular biology.

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The EvoDevoCI: A Concept Inventory for Gauging Students’ Understanding of Evolutionary Developmental Biology

CBE—Life Sciences Education ◽

10.1187/cbe.13-04-0079 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 665-675 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Kathryn E. Perez ◽

Anna Hiatt ◽

Gregory K. Davis ◽

Caleb Trujillo ◽

Donald P. French ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Biology Education ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Student Understanding ◽

Concept Inventory ◽

Validity And Reliability ◽

Undergraduate Biology ◽

Evo Devo ◽

Conceptual Difficulties ◽

Biology Majors

The American Association for the Advancement of Science 2011 report Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education encourages the teaching of developmental biology as an important part of teaching evolution. Recently, however, we found that biology majors often lack the developmental knowledge needed to understand evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo-devo.” To assist in efforts to improve evo-devo instruction among undergraduate biology majors, we designed a concept inventory (CI) for evolutionary developmental biology, the EvoDevoCI. The CI measures student understanding of six core evo-devo concepts using four scenarios and 11 multiple-choice items, all inspired by authentic scientific examples. Distracters were designed to represent the common conceptual difficulties students have with each evo-devo concept. The tool was validated by experts and administered at four institutions to 1191 students during preliminary (n = 652) and final (n = 539) field trials. We used student responses to evaluate the readability, difficulty, discriminability, validity, and reliability of the EvoDevoCI, which included items ranging in difficulty from 0.22–0.55 and in discriminability from 0.19–0.38. Such measures suggest the EvoDevoCI is an effective tool for assessing student understanding of evo-devo concepts and the prevalence of associated common conceptual difficulties among both novice and advanced undergraduate biology majors.

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Beyond the Adaptationist Legacy: Updating Our Teaching to Include a Diversity of Evolutionary Mechanisms

The American Biology Teacher ◽

10.1525/abt.2016.78.2.101 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 78 (2) ◽

pp. 101-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Rebecca M. Price ◽

Kathryn E. Perez

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Education Research ◽

Natural Selection ◽

Paradigm Shift ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Evolutionary Processes ◽

Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽

Teaching Standards ◽

Dominance Relationships ◽

Evo Devo

A paradigm shift away from viewing evolution primarily in terms of adaptation – the “adaptationist programme” of Gould and Lewontin – began in evolutionary research more than 35 years ago, but that shift has yet to occur within evolutionary education research or within teaching standards. We review three instruments that can help education researchers and educators undertake this paradigm shift. The instruments assess how biology undergraduates understand three evolutionary processes other than natural selection: genetic drift, dominance relationships among allelic pairs, and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Testing with these instruments reveals that students often explain a diversity of evolutionary mechanisms incorrectly by invoking misconceptions about natural selection. We propose that increasing the emphasis on teaching evolutionary processes other than natural selection could result in a better understanding of natural selection and a better understanding of all evolutionary processes. Finally, we propose two strategies for accomplishing this goal, interleaving natural selection with other evolutionary processes and the development of bridging analogies to describe evolutionary concepts.

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Evo-Devo and the Structure(s) of Evolutionary Theory

10.1093/oso/9780199377176.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Alan C. Love

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Evolutionary Theory ◽

Mechanistic Explanation ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Primary Concern ◽

Adaptive Function ◽

Specific Content ◽

Central Location ◽

Developmental Form ◽

Evo Devo

Many researchers have argued that evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) constitutes a challenge to standard evolutionary theory, requiring the explicit inclusion of developmental processes that generate variation and attention to organismal form (rather than adaptive function). An analysis of these developmental-form challenges indicates that the primary concern is not the inclusion of specific content but the epistemic organization or structure of evolutionary theory. Proponents of developmental-form challenges favor moving their considerations to a more central location in evolutionary theorizing, in part because of a commitment to the value of mechanistic explanation. This chapter argues there are multiple legitimate structures for evolutionary theory, instead of a single, overarching or canonical organization, and different theory presentations can be understood as idealizations that serve different investigative and explanatory goals in evolutionary inquiry.

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Ewolucja. Twórcza moc selekcji

10.31338/uw.9788323541134 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jerzy Dzik

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Natural Selection ◽

Cultural Evolution ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Social Life ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Homeotic Genes ◽

Time Dimension ◽

Geological Time ◽

Theory Of Evolution

An instructive introduction to the theory of evolution and its applications in biology, physics, chemistry, geology and humanities. The author shows that evolution is a physical process, occurring in geological time dimension, describes how the Darwin’s theory of natural selection works in immunology, neurobiology, sociology as well as in certain aspects of culture and political institutions. He also shows the effects achieved through the action of selection in different areas of biological and social life. He discusses such problems as: the ambiguity of the term “theory of evolution”, the falsifiability of evolutionary hypotheses, connection between evolution and thermodynamics, the concept of reductionism, methodological background of phylogenetics, cladistics, evolutionary developmental biology and homeotic genes, as well as the cumulative nature of social and cultural evolution.

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Where is, in 2017, the evo in evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology)?

Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B Molecular and Developmental Evolution ◽

10.1002/jez.b.22791 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 330 (1) ◽

pp. 15-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Rui Diogo

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Evo Devo

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Evolutionary developmental biology

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-q123-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Ron Amundson

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Developmental Genetics ◽

Comparative Biology ◽

Embryological Development ◽

Adult Form ◽

The Core ◽

Almost All ◽

Evo Devo ◽

Year 2000

Evolutionary developmental biology is the study of evolutionary change (called phylogeny) as it is revealed through the embryological development of individual organisms (called ontogeny). On this approach, the understanding of ontogeny contributes to our understanding of phylogeny, and vice versa. Evolutionary thinkers of the nineteenth century almost all held what may be called the core doctrine of evolutionary developmental biology: that in order to achieve a modification in the adult form, evolution must modify the embryological processes responsible for that form, so that an understanding of evolution requires an understanding of development. Evolutionary theory has no theoretical need for developmental views of evolution. Beginning around 1990 a series of discoveries and theoretical innovations in developmental genetics led to the reinvigoration of developmental approaches to evolution. Evolutionary developmental biology (‘evo-devo’ as it is now called) was inaugurated as a Division of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in the year 2000.

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Evolution Makes More Sense in the Light of Development

The American Biology Teacher ◽

10.1525/abt.2014.76.8.2 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 76 (8) ◽

pp. 493-498 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kostas Kampourakis ◽

Alessandro Minelli

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Evolutionary Biology ◽

Conceptual Development ◽

Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽

Public Communication ◽

Common Ancestry ◽

Development Research ◽

The Public ◽

Psychological Essentialism ◽

Evo Devo

We highlight some important conceptual issues that biologists should take into account when teaching evolutionary biology or communicating it to the public. We first present conclusions from conceptual development research on how particular human intuitions, namely design teleology and psychological essentialism, influence the understanding of evolution. We argue that these two intuitions form important conceptual obstacles to understanding evolution that should be explicitly addressed during instruction and public communication. Given that a major issue in evolution is understanding how very different forms may share common ancestry – antievolutionists have argued that this is inconceivable – we suggest that evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), which provides concepts and evidence that large morphological change is possible, could be used to address the intuitions that organisms have fixed essences (psychological essentialism) and that their structure indicates some kind of intentional design (design teleology).

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