ИСТИНА

Currently there is a strong belief that ontogenetic principles are widely employed in biology. However, the practice reveals an opposite situation. Most studies still focus on model groups only. Taxonomy (systematics) and phylogenetics as major fields responsible for understanding of biological diversity are predominantly “ontogenetically free” and loosely connect with other main biological disciplines. This is confirmed by analysis of citation statistics on different metazoan groups. The term “taxonomy” is absent from recent schemes explaining evo-devo synthesis. Attempts to employ development in taxonomy and phylogenetics are exceptions rather than common practice. Evolution is normally represented as branched trees and does not necessary imply ontogenetic cycle. This means that an apparently trivial statement is worth a reminder: any functional interactions and evolutionary modifications are occurred exclusively in frames of a particular ontogenetic cycle. There is no life beyond a developmental cycle, either very short or long. Recent advancements in evo-devo confirm the phenomenon of recapitulation using transcriptomic analysis for plants and animals (i.e. information about ancestral organization could not only be ambiguously inferred in course of a phylogenetic analysis but directly observed during the ontogeny). For systematics this has important implications: any taxon can be represented in frames of a model of ancestral ontogenetic cycle. The advantage of the present approach, never utilized consistently in modern taxonomy and phylogenetics is integration of “static” taxonomic information with phylotypic periods. Immediate practical benefits are feasibility of predictions of both unknown developmental stages among given group based on the properties of common phylotypic periods and new taxa with particular characters. Practical examples of such an approach in two completely different metazoan groups (opisthobranch molluscs and echinoderms) will be demonstrated. Growing attention to epigenetic modifications well meets ontogeny as a central paradigm of biology. The work is supported by RFBR grant # 13-04-01641а.