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Rosa's rule, also known as Rosa's law of progressive reduction of variability, is a biological rule that observes the tendency to go from character variation in more primitive representatives of a taxonomic group or clade to a fixed character state in more advanced members. An example of Rosa's rule is that the number of thoracic segments in adults (or holaspids) may vary in Cambrian trilobite species, while from the Ordovician the number of thoracic segments is constant in entire genera, families, and even suborders. Thus, a trend of decreasing trait variation between individuals of a taxon as the taxon develops across evolutionary time can be observed. The rule is named for Italian paleontologist Daniele Rosa.

References

1. Phylogenetic Systematics, by Willi Hennig (translated from German by D. Dwight Davis and Rainer Zangerl); originally published in German in 1966; published in 1979 by University of Illinois Press (via Google Books)
2. Hughes, Nigel C. (1994). "Ontogeny, Intraspecific Variation, and Systematics of the Late Cambrian Trilobite Dikelocephalus" (PDF). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. 79 (79): 89. doi:10.5479/si.00810266.79.1. Retrieved 2014-03-07.
3. Life's Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Life's Ancestry, 1860-1940, by Peter J. Bowler; published 1995 by University of Chicago Press (via Google Books)

v t e Biological rules
Rules	Allen's rule Shorter appendages in colder climates Bateson's rule Extra limbs mirror their neighbours Bergmann's rule Larger bodies in colder climates Cope's rule Bodies get larger over time Deep-sea gigantism Larger bodies in deep-sea animals Dollo's law Loss of complex traits is irreversible Eichler's rule Parasites co-vary with their hosts Emery's rule Insect social parasites are often in same genus as their hosts Fahrenholz's rule Host and parasite phylogenies become congruent Foster's rule (Insular gigantism, Insular dwarfism) Small species get larger, large species smaller, after colonizing islands Gause's law Complete competitors cannot coexist Gloger's rule Lighter coloration in colder, drier climates Haldane's rule Hybrid sexes that are absent, rare, or sterile, are heterogamic Harrison's rule Parasites co-vary in size with their hosts Hamilton's rule Genes increase in frequency when relatedness of recipient to actor times benefit to recipient exceeds reproductive cost to actor Kleiber's law An animals metabolic rate decreases with its size Hennig's progression rule In cladistics, the most primitive species are found in earliest, central, part of group's area Jarman–Bell principle The correlation between the size of an animal and its diet quality; larger animals can consume lower quality diet Jordan's rule Inverse relationship between water temperature and no. of fin rays, vertebrae Lack's principle Birds lay only as many eggs as they can provide food for Rapoport's rule Latitudinal range increases with latitude Rensch's rule Sexual size dimorphism increases with size when males are larger, decreases with size when females are larger Rosa's rule Groups evolve from character variation in primitive species to a fixed character state in advanced ones Schmalhausen's law A population at limit of tolerance in one aspect is vulnerable to small differences in any other aspect Thayer's law The top of an animals coloration is darker than the bottom Thorson's rule No. of eggs of benthic marine invertebrates decreases with latitude Van Valen's law Probability of extinction of a group is constant over time von Baer's laws Embryos start from a common form and develop into increasingly specialised forms Williston's law Parts in an organism become reduced in number and specialized in function
Related	Countergradient variation Where genetics opposes environment as a factor Gigantothermy Large ectothermic animals more easily maintain constant body temperature

• Biological rules
• Evolutionary biology