Turtle Genome


 
Green sea turtleEmbryology plays a critical role in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The “leading facts in embryology … [were] second to none in importance,” he argued in The Origin of Species. Illustrations of embryos by Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist, influenced Darwin. Haeckel’s drawings portray embryos repeating the steps of evolution, known as the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” theory.

Genes drive evolution by means of natural selection, it is thought, and since turtles have a unique body plan, studying the turtle genome through embryonic development is expected to give insight into their origin. Zhuo Wang of  BGI-Shenzhen, China, led the first team to study the genetics of embryonic turtle development. Their paper entitled “The draft genomes of softshell turtle and green sea turtle yield insights into the development and evolution of the turtle specific body plan” was published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics.

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