This is an important text for a still-emerging field of Biology, relating the embryo to its environment. Intersecting numerous disciplines in the Biological and Life Sciences, the authors have provided coverage in which the molecular biology of epigenetic development meets and interacts with the evolutionary aspects of phenotypic plasticity.

PART I: ENVIRONMENTAL SIGNALS AND NORMAL DEVELOPMENT
The Environment as a Normal Agent in Producing Phenotypes
How Agents in the Environment Effect Molecular Changes in Development
Developmental Symbiosis: Co-Development as a Strategy for Life
Embryonic Defenses: Survival in a Hostile World
PART II: ECOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY AND DISEASE STATES
Teratogenesis: Environmental Assaults on Development
Endocrine Disruptors
The Epigenetic Origin of Adult Diseases
PART III: TOWARD A DEVELOPMENTAL EVOLUTIONARY SYNTHESIS
The Modern Synthesis: Natural Selection of Allelic Variation
Evolution through Developmental Regulatory Genes
Environment, Development, and Evolution: Toward a New Synthesis
CODA: Philosophical Concerns Raised by Ecological Developmental Biology
APPENDX A: Lysenko, Kammerer, and the Truncated Tradition of Ecological Developmental Biology
APPENDIX B: The Molecular Mechanisms of Epigenetic Change
APPENDIX C: Writing Development Out of the Modern Synthesis
APPENDIX D: Epigenetic Inheritance Systems: The Inheritance of Environmentally Induced Traits