Punctuated equilibrium in a neontological context

Abstract

The theory of punctuated equilibrium, which proposes that biological species evolve rapidly when they originate rather than gradually over time, has sparked intense debate between palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists about the mode of character evolution and the importance of natural selection. Difficulty in interpreting the fossil record prevented consensus, and it remains disputed as to what extent gradual change in established species is responsible for phenotypic differences between species. Against the historical background of the concept of evolution concentrated in speciation events, we review attempts to investigate tempo and mode of evolution using present-day species since the introduction of the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972. We discuss advantages, disadvantages, and prospects of using neontological data, methodological advances, and the findings of some recent studies.

Species Selection and the Macroevolution of Coral Coloniality and Photosymbiosis

“…In a phylogenetic context, the amount of anagenesis is a function of the lengths of branches whereas cladogenesis is a function of the number of speciations. Bokma's method (Bokma , ; Mattila and Bokma ; Monroe and Bokma ; Ingram ) estimates the total change in the phylogeny and partitions it into a single estimate that sums the anagenetic and cladogenetic components. Both the magnitude and direction of phenotypic change is captured in the raw difference in phenotypes between descendants and ancestors, .…”

“…Somewhat independently from the paleobiological approach to species selection, comparative phylogeneticists developed methods to measure diversification rates using time‐calibrated molecular phylogenies (e.g., Nee et al ,, ,; Nee and May ; Paradis , , , ). Along with these methods for measuring diversification rates, Bokma and others (Bokma , ; Mattila and Bokma ; Monroe and Bokma ; Ingram ) have developed explicit methods for measuring the exact phylogenetic changes that can produce trends.…”

The temporal dimension of marine speciation

“…The second claim of ''stasis'' in punctuated equilibrium suggests that species do not track environmental change with continuous morphological evolution after they appear (Eldredge and Gould 1972;Sheldon 1996;Hunt 2010;Monroe and Bokma 2010;Weiss 2011). There certainly are examples of stasis in the fossil record, but their significance for evolutionary process is also open to question (Monroe and Bokma 2010).…”

Genetic constraints predict evolutionary divergence inDalechampiablossoms

“…The alternative extreme is that macroevolution is decoupled from microevolution in such a way that microevolutionary theory is largely irrelevant, and different conceptual tools must be used when studying the two levels (e.g. [7][8][9][10]). Most biologists, including those cited above, would probably agree that the truth is somewhere in between these extremes, but exactly how far microevolutionary models can be extended remains an open question [11].…”