  Search for possible relationships between phylogeny and ontogeny is one of
the most important issues in the field of evolutionary developmental biology.
By representing developmental dynamics of spatially located cells with gene
expression dynamics with cell-to-cell interaction under external morphogen
gradient, evolved are gene regulation networks under mutation and selection
with the fitness to approach a prescribed spatial pattern of expressed genes.
For most of thousands of numerical evolution experiments, evolution of pattern
over generations and development of pattern by an evolved network exhibit
remarkable congruence. Here, both the pattern dynamics consist of several
epochs to form successive stripe formations between quasi-stationary regimes.
In evolution, the regimes are generations needed to hit relevant mutations,
while in development, they are due to the emergence of slowly varying
expression that controls the pattern change. Successive pattern changes are
thus generated, which are regulated by successive combinations of feedback or
feedforward regulations under the upstream feedforward network that reads the
morphogen gradient. By using a pattern generated by the upstream feedforward
network as a boundary condition, downstream networks form later stripe
patterns. These epochal changes in development and evolution are represented as
same bifurcations in dynamical-systems theory, and this agreement of
bifurcations lead to the evolution-development congruences. Violation of the
evolution-development congruence, observed exceptionally, is shown to be
originated in alteration of the boundary due to mutation at the upstream
feedforward network. Our results provide a new look on developmental stages,
punctuated equilibrium, developmental bottlenecks, and evolutionary acquisition
of novelty in morphogenesis.
