Four of the major animal systems studied for the mechanisms of their
early embryonic development are treated in this volume. The articles
address the specific questions studied in the various systems, discuss
the fundamental questions raised by the particular organism and explain
the techniques used to find answers to these questions. Questions of
patternformation, early organogenesis and the genetics of the early
development arecovered as well as the question of parental imprinting
phenomena in mammals which are important for the early differentiation.
The development of the mouse, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis and the
zebrafish is emphasized by leading experts of their fields, and current
problems in each system are exposed. For the zebrafish the advantages of
this new system for developmental biology studies are summarized and
discussed in their values, while in the other system the emphasis is
laid on one of the actual field of research.