BioConcepts

modulearticle (fr.); Modul (ger.)

• A repetitive functional and especially morphological component of an organized system such as the cell in multicellular organisms; functional building blocks.  
  category morphology

  1841

  [J’appelle système vasculaire l’ensemble des vaisseaux primitifs d’une feuille considérée comme plante distincte (phyton). […] un végétal original unique, le phyton

  Gaudichaud, C.G. (1841). Recherches générales sur l’organographie, la physiologie et l’organogénie des végétaux: 6; 38.]

  1901

  [Da jedes Blatt aus jener Zone des Axenscheitels hervorgeht, welche sich später als Knoten und eventuell auch als Stengelglied ausbildet, so darf man wohl auch im Blatt und seinem zu ihm gehörigen Stengelglied eine allgemeine morphologische Einheit erblicken, für welche ich die Bezeichnung Sprossglied angewandt habe, weil der beblätterte Spross aus lauter solchen Sprossgliedern zusammengesetzt ist, wie das Kaulom aus lauter Stengelgliedern.

  Celakowsky L. (1901). Die Gliederung der Kaulome. Bot. Zeitung 59, 79-113: 81.]

  1921

  Celakowsky […] compare une tige feuillée à un système complexe formé par la réunion d’articles plus ou moins nombreux, suivant que les feuilles sont elles-mêmes plus ou moins rapprochées. Chacun de ces articles est composé, d’après lui, d’une feuille et d’une portion de tige qui correspond à cette feuille

  Chauveaud, G. (1921). La constitution des plantes vasculaires révélée par leur ontogénie: 29-30.

  1970

  Un article est un axe dont le méristème édificateur parcourt la totalité de la séquence de différenciations propre à l’espèce considérée, depuis son origine jusqu’à la sexualité

  Hallé, F., Oldeman, R.A.A. (1970). Essai sur l’architecture et la dynamique de croissance des arbres tropicaux: 26f.; cf. Prévost, M.-F. (1967). Architecture de quelques Apocynacées ligneuses. Mém. Soc. Bot., France 114, 23-36.

  1974

  Mature trees are envisaged [by Hallé & Oldeman] as composed of several reiterations of the basic architectural modules

  Harper, J.L. & White, J. (1974). The demography of plants. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 5, 419-463: 421.

  1978

  the tree is made up of a series of equivalent morphological units repeated indefinitely. We follow Prévost (1967) in defining these units as articles, which we have translated as “modules” and we can refer to such trees as having a “modular construction”. […] The characteristics of a module are that of an axis in which the entire sequence of aerial differentiation is carried out, i.e., from the initiation of the meristem to the onset of sexuality which completes the development of the module.

  Hallé, F., Oldeman, R.A.A. & Tomlinson, P.B. (1978). Tropcial Trees and Forests: an Architectural Analysis: 5.

  1979

  several other terms are currently used for naming the parts of a plant and these are given in the Appendix. Some standardization is desirable because certain terms, such as module, first used in print by Harper & White […] as a translation of the French article […], have themselves begun to sprout new and less precise meanings. […]

  White, J. (1979). The plant as a metapopulation. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 10, 109-145: 110; 118.

  2004

  Modules are building blocks of interacting elements that operate in an integrated and relatively autonomous manner

  Schlosser, G. (2004). The role of modules in development and evolution. In: Schlosser, G. & Wagner, G.P. (eds.). Modularity in Development and Evolution, 519-582: 519-20.

  2006

  Modularity: Another source of the robustness or stability of organisms is the modularity of development (Raff [1996], p. 325). The developmental systems of organisms are arranged as a hierarchy of more or less discrete modules. The major features of modularity are integration and dissociation (Gass and Bolker [2003]). The elements within each module are highly integrated in a manner similar to gene regulatory networks. The effect of integration is that each module is capable of producing its normal output in a robust way […]. The dissociation of modules protects the output of each module against perturbations from other modules. A breakdown, or a change within the development of one module does not ramify throughout the entire developmental system of an organism. Consequently, the output of a module is stable across a wide range of developmental contexts […] Paradoxically, the conditions that secure the mutability of organisms are the very ones that secure their stability. Developmental systems that are structured in such a way as to be robust and buffered against perturbations are also capable of generating adaptive novelties.

  Walsh, D. (2006). Evolutionary essentialism. Brit. J. Philos. Sci. 57, 425-448: 437.