Size and shape: the developmental regulation of static allometry in insects

@article{Shingleton2007SizeAS,
  title={Size and shape: the developmental regulation of static allometry in insects},
  author={Alexander W. Shingleton and W. Anthony Frankino and T. Flatt and H. Frederik Nijhout and Douglas J. Emlen},
  journal={BioEssays},
  year={2007},
  volume={29}
}
Among all organisms, the size of each body part or organ scales with overall body size, a phenomenon called allometry. The study of shape and form has attracted enormous interest from biologists, but the genetic, developmental and physiological mechanisms that control allometry and the proportional growth of parts have remained elusive. Recent progress in our understanding of body‐size regulation provides a new synthetic framework for thinking about the mechanisms and the evolution of… 
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305 Citations

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Testing the hypothesis that covariation in trait size can be generated by network‐regulated scaling mechanisms that respond to changes in the growth of individual traits requires connecting mechanisms elucidated in the laboratory with patterns of scaling observed in the natural world.

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This work uses artificial selection to demonstrate that the slope of a morphological scaling relationship between an organ and body size can evolve independently of mean organ or body size.

Experimental Manipulation of Body Size to Estimate Morphological Scaling Relationships in Drosophila

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How simple experimental manipulation of diet can be used to produce the full range of body size in insects is described, allowing an estimation of the full scaling relationship for any given pair of traits, and a complete description of how shape covaries with size is described.

Growth and size control during development

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This review will focus mostly on work carried out in Drosophila to try to tease apart potential mechanisms and identify routes for further investigation.

Body size variation in insects: a macroecological perspective

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This review provides a critical and synthetic overview of body size variation in insects from a predominantly macroecological (large‐scale temporal and spatial) perspective and focuses on evolutionary trends, including gigantism, Cope's rule and the rates at which size change has taken place.

Unravelling the diversity of mechanisms through which nutrition regulates body size in insects.

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  • Environmental Science, Biology
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Allometry, Scaling and Ontogeny of Form-An Introduction to the Symposium.

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The time was right to bring diverse practitioners of allometry together in a symposium to discuss their most recent work in the hope of forging new functional, conceptual, and collaborative connections among established and novice practitioners.

The Origin of Novelty Through the Evolution of Scaling Relationships.

TLDR
It is shown that an allometry equation derived from Gompertz growth kinetics can accurately reconstruct complex non-linear allometries, and can be used to deduce the growth Kinetics of the parts being compared, and the relationship between ontogenetic and static allometry.

Many ways to be small: different environmental regulators of size generate distinct scaling relationships in Drosophila melanogaster

TLDR
Examining the patterns of scaling in Drosophila melanogaster subjected to variation in three environmental regulators of size indicates that trait size is not simply a read-out of body size, but that different environmental factors may regulate body and trait size, and the relationship between the two, through different developmental mechanisms.
...

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