Metamorphosis in the Urodelan amphibians: patterns, regulation mechanisms, and evolution

S. V. Smirnov

A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences

Leninsky pr. 33, Moscow 119071, Russia
e-mail: evol_morphol_lab@mail.ru

Patterns of metamorphosis and mechanisms of its regulation in primitive and advanced salamanders are compared. It is found that urodelan evolution was characterized by the following trends: 1) increase in the number of metamorphosing systems; 2) increase in the amplitude of metamorphic transformations of each particular system due to the progressive divergence of the larval and the adult morphology; 3) synchronization of metamorphic transformations and their concentration within a relatively short period of ontogeny; 4) increase in the role of the thyroid hormones (TH) in the regulation of metamorphosis. Structures that are induced by factors other than TH and develop independently of TH in primitive Urodela species acquire TH-dependence in phyletically more advanced salamanders. For instance, morphogenetic induction as a mechanism of ontogeny regulation is substituted by endocrine induction with TH as the inducing factor. The switch from morphogenetic to endocrine induction stimulates the following events: 1) optimization of ontogeny; 2) reduction of the metamorphosis duration; 3) formation of the dissociability of larval and post-metamorphic stages of ontogeny, which, in its turn, is a precondition for the switch to necrobiotic metamorphosis and to the direct development.