Quantitative and qualitative development

Development may amount to no more than a quantitative change (usually an increase) in a system that remains essentially unaltered. Qualitative development involves an alteration in the nature of the system. Pure examples of the first type are difficult to find. Approximations to it occur when an animal or plant has attained a structure with the full complement of organs; it then appears to increase only in size, that is to say, quantitatively. This would be a period of simple growth. A closer examination nearly always shows that the system is also undergoing some qualitative change, however. A human infant at birth, for example, already has its full complement of organs, but the ensuing developmental period up to adulthood involves not only growth but also processes of maturation that involve qualitative as well as quantitative changes. Perhaps the most uncomplicated examples of quantitative development occur in certain simple plants and animals. Flatworms, for example, may become reduced in size when starved but increase in size again when provided with suitable nutrition; they thus undergo quantitative changes. Even in these cases, however, it is found that the constituent organs do not always merely become reduced in size but may actually suffer the loss of certain parts.

Progressive and regressive development

The normal processes of development in the majority of plants and animals may be considered progressive since they lead to increases in size and complexity and to the addition of new elements to the system. As already indicated, some organisms, when placed in adverse conditions, may undergo regressive changes, both in size and complexity. Such regressive changes are a part of the normal life history of certain organisms. Characteristically, these are species in which the organism at an early stage develops a relatively complex structure that enables it to be motile, and later adopts a form of life for which motility is no longer a necessity. A good example is that of the barnacles, a group of marine crustaceans in which the egg at first develops into a motile larva that soon settles down and becomes firmly attached to a solid underwater surface. The barnacle then loses many of the organs characteristic of the motile phase and develops into its familiar stationary form.

There are a number of other examples, particularly in groups in which the adults adopt a parasitic form of life, especially within the digestive system or other tissues of a host animal, from which they have only to absorb their nutriment without having to move or to possess suitable organs for capturing prey. In such cases the early developmental period is characterized by progression toward more complex forms followed by a period of regression in which many of these organs may be lost. During this regressive period certain components of the organism (i.e., those concerned with functioning as a sessile or parasitic form) may undergo progressive development at the same time as the other organs are regressing.

Single-phase and multiphase development

The most familiar organisms, including man, undergo a single-phase development; the organs that appear at early stages persist throughout the whole of life. There are many kinds of animals that develop one or more larval stages adapted to a life different from that of the adult. Perhaps the best known of these is the common frog. The egg first develops into a tadpole, which is provided with a large muscular tail by which it swims. The tadpole eventually undergoes a change of form, or metamorphosis. This involves the regression and resorption of the tail and the growth of the limbs. During this time the rest of the body of the tadpole undergoes less profound changes; the organs persist but undergo relatively far-reaching progressive changes. In other animals, the alteration between the larval and the adult forms may be much more drastic. The egg of a sea urchin, for instance, at first develops to a small larva (the pluteus), which is completely unlike that of the adult. During metamorphosis nearly all the structures of the pluteus disappear; the five-rayed adult develops from a very small rudiment within the larva. In other groups of marine invertebrates, there may be successive larval stages before the adult form appears.

Plants in general appear to exhibit a type of development related in a general way to the multiphased development just discussed in animals, although rather different from it in essence. This is called the “alternation of generations.” The majority of higher plants possess two sets of similar chromosomes in each of their cells, that is to say they are diploid (2n), as are most higher animals. But in sexual reproduction, diploid cells undergo a reduction division so as to form precursors of the sex cells, which are haploid—i.e., they contain only one set of chromosomes. In animals these cells develop directly into the sex cells—egg and sperm—which unite in fertilization. In plants the haploid cells undergo some developmental processes before the functioning sex cells are produced. The products of this development are spoken of as the “haploid generation.” In most higher plants the haploid development is quite reduced, so that the haploid individuals contain only a few nuclei—those associated with the pollen tube on the male side and a few associated with the egg on the female side. In some lower plants, however, such as mosses and ferns, the haploid development may be much more extensive and give rise to quite sizable separate plants. In such cases a species contains two kinds of individuals, produced by different types of developmental processes controlled, however, by the same genotype. This may be compared with the multiphasing development of larval forms in animals. The situation in plants, however, is characterized by the two forms of the organism having different chromosomal constitutions—haploid and diploid—whereas the larval forms and the adult of an animal species have the same chromosomal constitution.