 This ‘development first view’ (or sometimes called ‘plasticity first view’) of evolution is currently adopted especially by researchers in three fields of research: evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), epigenetics, and niche construction theory. Evo-devo studies how developmental pathways evolve and, more important for the above view, how developmental constraints and biases can affect evolutionary trajectories (Raff 1996, 2000; Gerhart &amp; Kirschner 1997; Love 2003; Amundson 2005; Laubichler &amp; Maienschein 2007; Sansom &amp; Brandon 2007; G. Müller 2007; Minelli 2009; Laubichler 2010; Pigliucci &amp; Müller 2010; Gilbert &amp; Epel 2015; Moczek et al. 2015; Levis &amp; Pfennig 2020). This includes asking how changes in gene regulatory networks cause modifications of developmental processes (associated with major shifts in morphological ‘body plans’) and thus produce evolutionary novelties, or what capacities organisms have to generate heritable, adaptive phenotypic variation and thus to evolve in evolution (i.e. their evolvability; see Hendrikse et al. 2007). This focus on how phenotypic variation is produced, rather than how it is selected, is supported by studies in epigenetics on inter- and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (see the entry  inheritance systems),  like through the transmission of regulatory factors of gene activity (Jablonka &amp; Lamb 1989, 2014, Janlonka &amp; Raz 2009, Perez &amp; Lehner 2019). Other forms of extra-genetic inheritance include the transmission of microbiota (Gilbert et al. 2012, 2014, Browne et al. 2017) and behaviorally mediated parental effects (Kappeler &amp; Meaney 2010; Rilling &amp; Young 2014). This set of processes contains environmentally sensitive non-genetic sources of variation for organisms that can be transmitted across generations, in many cases decoupled from the transfer of genetic information. Finally, niche construction theory highlights the self-perpetuating and reciprocal effects of organisms, as agents, that construct their own niche (and/or that of other species) during development (Lewontin 1982; Sterelny 2001; Day et al. 2003; Odling-Smee et al. 2003; Laland et al. 2008, 2009, 2011; Odling-Smee 2010; Chiu &amp; Gilbert 2015, 2020; Aaby &amp; Ramsey forthcoming). These recent studies on developmental evolution will be discussed in detail in section 3.