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MICROEVOLUTIONARY SEQUENCES AS A FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPT IN MACROEVOLUTIONARY MODELS
Author(s) -
Bock Walter J.
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1970.tb01806.x
Subject(s) - ornithology , modern evolutionary synthesis , citation , genealogy , biology , art history , classics , library science , history , evolutionary biology , computer science , ecology , southern hemisphere
Mechanisms of major evolutionary change have remained one of the more vexing problems in evolutionary biology. The long time periods associated with their operation precludes the use of experiments and direct observations for the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying transspecific changes. Paleontologists have supplied most of the direct observations of major phyletic evolution in plants and animals, but they have been severely limited in their efforts to clarify the associated evolutionary mechanisms because of the nature of the fossil record. Evolutionists are restricted to analogies and assumptions as the main bases for the formulation of theories explaining large evolutionary changes. Most earlier students assumed that evolution of new taxa or of new complex adaptive features resulted from some type of saltation; hence they believed that the mechanisms of transspecific evolution differed from those acting at the species level. They also believed that the known methods of microevolution could not explain the "fundamental differences" associated with the origin of a new complex adaptation or the rise of a new major taxon. These views mirrored the large gaps in the known fossil record at that time and still undiscovered or inadequately studied adaptations among living organisms. With the development of the synthetic theory of evolution beginning in the 1930's, many workers claimed that major evolutionary change occurred by the same mechanisms