Evolution and Ecology

The mechanisms of macroevolutionary change have long been a contentious issue. Palaeoecological evidence, presented in this book, shows that evolutionary processes visible in ecological time do not build up into macroevolutionary trends, contrary to Darwin's original thesis. The author discusses how climatic oscillations on ice-age time-scales are paced by variations in the Earth's orbit, and have thus been a permanent feature of Earth history. There is, however, little evidence for macroevolutionary change in response to these climatic changes, suggesting that over geological time macroevolution does not occur as a result of accumulated short-term processes. These conclusions are used to construct a post-modern evolutionary synthesis in which evolution and ecology play an equal role. Written by a leading palaeoecologist, this book will be of interest to researchers in both ecology and evolutionary biology.

First sentence: This chapter presents the current status of thinking on evolutionary processes in ecological and geological time.

Year

1996

Language

English

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Editions

3

Pages

259

ISBN

9780521399210

Data source: Wikidata