JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY (MOL DEV EVOL) 288:285–286 (2000) Published 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc. This article is a U.S. Gov- ernment work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America. JEZ 2030 Evolution and Development at the National Science Foundation JUDITH PLESSET, 1 SAMUEL SCHEINER, 2 * AND SUSAN SINGER 3 1 Program Director, Animal Developmental Mechanisms, Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 2 Program Director, Population Biology, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia 3 Program Director, Plant and Microbial Developmental Mechanisms, Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia The study of the evolution of development has experienced a renaissance during the past decade. Witness the launching of two new journals: Evo- lution of Development and Molecular and Devel- opmental Evolution. In their inaugural editorials, both journals emphasize the diversity and creative tensions in the field. Both anticipate an ongoing dialogue rooted in the different intellectual and historical foci of the two traditional disciplines. The search for universality and proximate deter- mination in current developmental studies and the focus on variation, natural selection, and fitness in evolutionary studies will contend and enrich each other in these journals. The breadth and em- phases in this renewed endeavor are mirrored at the National Science Foundation (NSF); both with respect to the broad range of organisms studied and by the multiplicity of approaches taken. In this letter we describe how the NSF has responded to the recent resurgence of the study of evolution and development. There is broad interest within the Biology Di- rectorate in the evolution of development. Many clusters in all four Divisions in Biology support diverse research approaches in this emerging field. The primary program funding work on the evolution of development at the NSF is the Evo- lution of Developmental Mechanisms program el- ement in the Division of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience (IBN). A brief history of the estab- lishment of this program will hopefully illustrate the NSF’s response to what it perceives as the community’s needs. In fiscal year 1991, the Developmental Mecha- nisms Program’s expenditures approached a quar- ter of a million dollars for research in Evolution of Development. At that time, an external Com- mittee of Visitors reviewing the Developmental Mechanisms Program suggested that we pay close attention to the area of development and evolu- tion. Concurrently, the NSF was planning a work- shop on Molecular Evolution and the chairman of the Committee of Visitors was invited to attend. After the workshop, the Sloan/NSF Postdoctoral Fellowships and Young Investigator Awards in Molecular Evolution were instituted with the urg- ing of program directors from across the Direc- torate, including Population Biology, Systematics, and Computational Biology. This five-year pro- gram ended in 1998. Other activities essential for the vitality of this field were initiated at the NSF. For example, funded jointly by the NSF and other agencies and administered within the NSF from the then named Division of Biological Instrumentation and Resources, the Deep Green project brought 200 scientists from 12 countries together to establish a green-plant phylogeny. This five-year project pro- vided a phylogenetic foundation for investigating the evolution of developmental mechanisms and yielded some exciting surprises, including the dis- covery that the most recent ancestor of the land plants was a freshwater alga. The rapid growth of the NSF’s participation in the field of evolution and development has con- tinued. In fiscal year 1998 an Evo/Devo workshop *Correspondence to: Samuel M. Scheiner, Division of Environmen- tal Biology, Room 635. 4201 Wilson Blvd., National Science Founda- tion, Arlington, VA 22230. E-mail: sscheine@nsf.gov Received 30 August 2000; Accepted 5 September 2000