Conceptual and empirical bridges between micro- and macroevolution

• This Perspective discusses four questions of evolutionary biology that bridge macro and microevolution perspectives and proposes future research avenues to link evolutionary mechanisms and processes. Explaining broad molecular, phenotypic and species biodiversity patterns necessitates a unifying framework spanning multiple evolutionary scales. Here we argue that although substantial effort has been made to reconcile microevolution and macroevolution, much work remains to identify the links between biological processes at play. We highlight four major questions of evolutionary biology whose solutions require conceptual bridges between micro and macroevolution. We review potential avenues for future research to establish how mechanisms at one scale (drift, mutation, migration, selection) translate to processes at the other scale (speciation, extinction, biogeographic dispersal) and vice versa. We propose ways in which current comparative methods to infer molecular evolution, phenotypic evolution and species diversification could be improved to specifically address these questions. We conclude that researchers are in a better position than ever before to build a synthesis to understand how microevolutionary dynamics unfold over millions of years.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

molecular evolution

adaptive radiation

ecological interactions

diversification rates

stabilizing selection

diversity-dependence

phenotypic evolution

species richness

speciation

tempo

Environmental Sciences & Ecology

Evolutionary Biology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)