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