Chapter 9. Ontogeny and Phylogeny


Species membership is expressed through ontogeny, the development of individuals, while phylogeny is the pattern of evolutionary relationships among species and groups of species, traced by the features they share. Development is "predetermined" to a great extent as the information an organism possesses, or can express, constrains the forms it can take, but multicellular organisms exhibit emergence; an adult has properties not possessed by its collective parts or even its embryonic self.

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