Fig. 4: The configuration space representing the effect of temperature on development.
a A case of two stages is given as an example for simplicity. Each axis of the configuration space is represented by a stage. The 'state' is given as the position of a normalised vector (length = 1). The vector coordinates (φs > 0) reflect the proportional time of each stage, which results in the vector being normalised (absolute time of development is not considered). This configuration applies to models of Eqs. 1 and 5. Changes in temperature leads to changes in the proportional time of each stage, which makes the vector rotate. The rotation occurs because temperature changes the proportional time. b Example based on an experiment on the effect of temperature (constant conditions, three levels) on the development of nematode C. elegans to different stages (=events); source: Fig. 2c of ref. 72. A rotation of the vector would correspond to a change in slope in Fig. 6C of ref. 72. Right panel: reconstruction of a subset of data; Left panel: normalised vector for each pair of events and for the dashed line (black dots). Details of methods are given in the Supplementary Note 2; data points are given in Supplementary Data 1.
