ABSTRACT
We are living in an era of environmental change with undeniable parallels with past mass extinctions. To improve our understanding of planetary health and resilience, we must expand our research beyond traditional lab models. Forecasting the future of biological diversity relies on extrapolation of past trends, which necessitates the study of a wider range of biological systems. The ‘Unconventional and Emerging Experimental Organisms for Cell and Developmental Biology’ meeting, which took place in Dorking, UK, in September 2023, emphasized the importance of this broader approach. Discussions centered on evolutionary innovation, robustness and diversity, underscoring the need for broader taxon sampling and novel experimental models to address current and future challenges.
Footnotes
Funding
Research in the lab of S.L. was supported by the Universität Hohenheim, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (LE 2787/3-1 and LE 2787/4-1) and a Human Frontier Science Program fellowship (LT000597/2019). Research in the lab of A.G. was supported by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, a European Research Council Consolidator Grant [724715 (SYMCELLS)] and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GU 1128/5-1). A.A. was supported by the National Institutes of Health (5K12GM081266 and K99GM154059).
Special Issue
This article is part of the Special Issue ‘Uncovering developmental diversity’, edited by Cassandra Extavour, Liam Dolan and Karen Sears. See related articles at https://journals.biologists.com/dev/issue/151/20.
