Biometric analyses of the ontogenies of 31 species of fossil echinoids support a hypothesized relationship between regulatory gene changes and environmental stability. In 15 of 17 pairs of related species, the larger species, undergoing slower (neotenic) and/or prolonged (hypermorphic) growth, apparently inhabited the stabler environment. If true, this relationship connects biological processes at a number of levels and explains or agrees with some important macroevolutionary observations, such as onshore evolutionary innovation and Cope's Rule.
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Michael L. McKinney (1986) studied this question.
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