Comparative Developmental Physiology – Contributions, Tools, and Trends is a collection of thirteen articles selected from topics discussed at the meeting `New Directions in Developmental Physiology', held in Texas in 2002. The chapters cover quite different subjects, in seemingly casual order, ranging from theoretical or almost philosophical essays to modeling and experimental details. As neither the book nor the individual chapters have summaries, I will briefly allude to their content in this review.
What comparative developmental physiology really means is not easy to explain. To some of us, development refers to the early stages of animal life,when organs and tissues get formed, but the precise chronological boundaries are undefined. Some organisms grow throughout their entire life, while in others, metamorphosis closes one phase, just to introduce the early stages of the next one. The term comparative, in the common biological and physiological jargon, is often applied to experiments on exotic...
