Book Review: Developmental Biology, 6e by Scott Gilbert

Vin Lawrence

Sinauer Associates, publisher of Scott Gilbert’s Developmental Biology, has assembled an impressive array of positive endorsements on the flip side of an equally impressive adoption list for the 6^th edition. Although Gilbert’s writing style and generally interesting presentation remain compelling, it does not seem unreasonable to label his text an "instructor’s nightmare."

The present reorganization of a text that began as a clear choice for the medium to introduce students to this dynamic discipline could confound any number of approaches that the instructor may attempt. Part I, a six-chapter "unit" labeled Principles of Developmental Biology described in the Preface as an introductory section, gathers disparate material from numerous sources only to leave much of it without adequate explanation. One may wonder as to just who is being introduced to what. I do not find it pedagogically effective that "…material presented in Chapter 1 is revisited throughout the other five chapters, but with different emphases."

Vin Lawrence is a professor of biology at Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, PA. He teaches General Biology, Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Ecology, and Developmental Biology in addition to January Intersession travel courses in Natural History of the Everglades and Natural History of East Africa. A member of ABLE since 1986, he has presented workshops on "Community Ordination Utilizing Winter Stoneflies" (1987) and "Natural History Field Courses in East Africa" (1992).

After an initial, unified chapter on Fertilization, Part II attempts to cover cleavage, gastrulation, and axis formation organism-by-organism in sea urchins, snails, tunicates, and C. elegans in a manner that compromises either a process-by-process or an organism-by-organism approach. There then follow separate chapters on Drosophila and amphibian development before a chapter dealing with The Early Development of Vertebrates (other than amphibians). In this section, the term "Dauerblastula" appears in a figure with neither reference nor explanation in the text and sans listing in the subject index. Some may take solace in the assurance that the approximately 200-page reduction from the previous edition "…was accomplished by putting much of the advanced material, as well as nearly all the material now covered in introductory biology textbooks, onto the website that is integrated with the text." Admirably up-to-date in many details, the 6^th edition retains (as a footnote in Chapter 7) an erroneous interpretation of fertilization in Jefferson and blue-spotted salamanders.

Part III treats Later Embryonic Development essentially from a vertebrate perspective until Chapter 17 where sex determination in Drosophila is included and location-dependent sex determination in Bonellia and Crepidula is mentioned. Chapter 18, on Metamorphosis, Regeneration, and Aging, includes a discussion of insect metamorphosis containing the statement that "A few insects, such as springtails and mayflies, have no larval stage and undergo direct development." While many entomologists do not consider springtails to be insects, there is no doubt that mayflies are hemimetabolous and do not undergo direct development. Figure 18.11, that accompanies this discussion, correctly shows a silverfish as an example of an insect that exhibits ametabolous (direct) development. The silverfish is a bristletail and an undisputed primitive insect. Closing out Part III, Chapter 19 treats germ cell formation as a process, much as Chapter 7 treats fertilization, but certainly unlike the other chapters of Part II present other processes of early development.

Supportive websites and an accompanying CD-ROM notwithstanding, a textbook should stand on its own. The 6^th edition of Gilbert’s Developmental Biology does not do this. It also seems organizationally challenged. Despite these problems, it remains arguably the most readable textbook in the discipline.