Origination of Organismal Form: Beyond the Gene in Developmental and Evolutionary Biology (ISBN 0-262-13419-5) is a book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 published in 2003 edited by Gerd B. Müller

Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)

Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...

 and Stuart A. Newman

Stuart Newman

Stuart Alan Newman is a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY, United States. His research centers around three program areas: cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebrate limb development, physical mechanisms of morphogenesis, and mechanisms of...

. It explores the multiple factors that may have been responsible for the origination of biological

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 form in multicellular

Multicellular organism

Multicellular organisms are organisms that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to single-celled organisms. Most life that can be seen with the the naked eye is multicellular, as are all animals and land plants.-Evolutionary history:Multicellularity has evolved independently dozens of times...

 life. These biological forms include limb

Limb (anatomy)

A limb is a jointed, or prehensile , appendage of the human or other animal body....

s, segmented structures, and different body symmetries.

The book explores why the basic body plans of nearly all multicellular life arose in the relatively short time span of the Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian explosion

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...

. The authors focus on physical factors other than changes in an organism's genome

Genome

In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

 that may have caused multicellular life to form new structures. These physical factors include differential adhesion of cells and feedback oscillations between cells.

The book also presents recent experimental results that examine how the same embryonic tissues or tumor cells can be coaxed into forming dramatically different structures under different environmental conditions.

One of the goals of the book is to stimulate research

Research

Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 that may lead to a more comprehensive theory of evolution.

List of contributions

1. Origination of Organismal Form: The Forgotten Cause in Evolutionary Theory, Gerd B. Müller and Stuart A. Newman
2. The Cambrian "Explosion" of Metazoans, Simon Conway Morris
   Simon Conway Morris
   Simon Conway Morris FRS is an English paleontologist made known by his detailed and careful study of the Burgess Shale fossils, an exploit celebrated in Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould...
   
   
3. Convergence and Homoplasy in the Evolution of Organismal Form, Pat Willmer
4. Homology:The Evolution of Morphological Organization, Gerd B. Müller
   Gerd Müller (theoretical biologist)
   Gerd B. Müller is professor at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of Theoretical Biology and is speaker of the Center for Organismal Systems Biology. His research interests focus on evolutionary innovation, evo-devo theory, and the extension of the Evolutionary Synthesis...
   
   
5. Only Details Determine, Roy J. Britten
6. The Reactive Genome, Scott F. Gilbert
7. Tissue Specificity: Structural Cues Allow Diverse Phenotypes from a Constant Genotype, Mina J. Bissell, I. Saira Mian, Derek Radisky and Eva Turley
8. Genes, Cell Behavior, and the Evolution of Form, Ellen Larsen
9. Cell Adhesive Interactions and Tissue Self-Organization, Malcolm Steinberg
10. Gradients, Diffusion, and Genes in Pattern Formation, H. Frederik Nijhout
11. A Biochemical Oscillator Linked to Vertebrate Segmentation, Olivier Pourquié
12. Organization through Intra-Inter Dynamics, Kunihiko Kaneko
13. From Physics to Development: The Evolution of Morphogenetic Mechanisms, Stuart A. Newman
14. Phenotypic Plasticity and Evolution by Genetic Assimilation, Vidyanand Nanjundiah
15. Genetic and Epigenetic Factors in the Origin of the Tetrapod Limb, Günter P. Wagner and Chi-hua Chiu
16. Epigenesis and Evolution of Brains: From Embryonic Divisions to Functional Systems, Georg F. Striedter
    Georg F. Striedter
    Georg F. Striedter is an American scientist and Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of more than 30 papers in evolutionary neuroscience and the author of...
    
    
17. Boundary Constraints for the Emergence of Form, Diego Rasskin-Gutman