Evolutionary programmed development as the basis of Darwinian selection: A review

Abstract

The sources of biological variation are numerous and versatile. The basic problem is to explain how this huge potential variation could be limited and reduced to adaptive combinations of allelogenes and characters. It has been estimated that, in a population of Drosophila melanogaster with a few thousands of individuals, the number of existing genotypes for a metabolic system controlled by 8-10 polymorphic loci, would not exceed more than 0.5% of possible combinations of genes. Based on individual allozyme analysis of such a system in 400 flies, less than 1 pro-mile of possible combinations of three largest chromosomes of this species could be present in spermatozoa of an adult male, before they enter a competition to produce viable zygotes. Such adaptive combinations are targets of natural selection, realized through a restricted number of developmental (metabolic) programmes, being also the units of inheritance. The basic role in evolutionary development of such systems have intrinsic factors, i.e., the rules of auto-synthesis of well established programmes, directing a restrictive variation of adaptive variants with which Darwinian selection can operate.