The study of mechanisms and processes of ontogenetic development, differentiation, growth and morphogenesis in animals and plants at the genetic, molecular, cellular and functional levels. Its model organisms include, for example, the round worm (Caenorhabditis elegans), the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), the zebrafish (Brachydanio rerio), and the African clawed toed frog (Xenopus laevis). Starting in the 1990s, there have been further attempts to unite developmental and evolutionary biology in what is called a ‘new synthesis’.
See Behavioral embryology, Biology, Caenorhabditis (C.) elegans (or nematode), Child development, Constraint, Developmental evolutionary biology, Differentiation (embryology), Discipline, Embryology, Evolutionary biology, Evolutionary developmental biology, Modern synthesis, Morphogenesis, Ontogenetic development