DEVELOPMENTAL STABILITY IN PLANTS - SYMMETRIES, STRESS AND EPIGENESIS

Plant developmental stability has received little attention in the pas t three or four decades. Here we review differences in plant and anima l development, and discuss the advantages of using plants as experimen tal subjects in exploring developmental stability. We argue that any t ype of developmental invariant may be used to assess developmental sta bility and review the use of fluctuating asymmetry in studies of plant developmental stability. We also examine the use of deviations from t ranslatory, radial, and self-symmetry as measures of developmental ins tability. The role of nonlinear dynamics and epigenesis in the product ion of the phenotype is also discussed.