| Phylogenetic studies on several groups of arthropods, such as Acari (mites) or Collembola (springtails), make wide use of chaetotaxy. Chaetotaxic characters, besides being morphological features (setal shape), often have a binary nature, that is presence vs. absence. A seta can be variable in a population, and one may attribute a presence probability to this seta. In fact, the presence probability should be defined for each instar. One might think that a variable seta corresponds to a polymorphism (e.g., two or more alleles in a population); in fact, setal variability should be regarded as the result of a propensity intrinsic to individuals, i.e., a potentiality being expressed at random among specimens. The phenomenon known as lateral inhibition explains... |
