Animal Evolution: Are Phyla Real?

Andreas Hejnol; Casey W Dunn

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.058

Animal Evolution: Are Phyla Real?

Curr Biol. 2016 May 23;26(10):R424-6. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.058.

Authors

Andreas Hejnol¹, Casey W Dunn²

Affiliations

¹ Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, 5008 Bergen, Norway. Electronic address: andreas.hejnol@uib.no.
² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Electronic address: casey_dunn@brown.edu.

PMID: 27218852
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.058

Abstract

A recent study compares developmental gene expression among very distantly related animal species and interprets the results as providing biological justification for phyla. Several problems in the design and interpretation of the study call this conclusion into question.

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MeSH terms

Animals
Biological Evolution*