The pace of modern life II: from rates of contemporary microevolution to pattern and process.

By M. Kinnison, A. Hendry. 2001

355 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We compiled a database of microevolution on contemporary time scales in nature (47 source articles; 30 animal species), comprising 2649 evolutionary rates in darwins (proportional change per million years) and 2151 evolutionary rates in haldanes (standard deviations per generation). Here we demonstrate how quantitative rate measures can provide general insights into patterns and processes of evolution. The frequency distribution of evolutionary rates was approximately log-normal, with many slow rates and few fast rates. Net selection intensities estimated from haldanes were on average lower than selection intensities commonly measured directly in natural populations. This difference suggests that natural selection could easily accomplish observed microevolution but that the intensities of selection typically measured in nature are rarely maintained for long (otherwise observed evolutionary rates would be higher). Traits closely associated with fitness (life history traits) appear to evolve at least as fast as traits less closely tied to fitness (morphology). The magnitude of evolutionary difference increased with the length of the time interval, particularly when maximum rates from a given study were considered. This pattern suggests a general underlying tendency toward increasing evolutionary diversification with time. However, evolutionary rates also tended to decrease with time, perhaps because longer time intervals average increasingly disparate rates over time, or because evolution slows when populations approach new optima or as genetic variation is depleted. In combination, our results suggest that macroevolutionary transitions may ultimately arise through microevolution occasionally ‘writ large’ but are perhaps temporally characterized by microevolution ‘writ in fits and starts’.

Subfields: Genetics, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/335e5900f666f91790a4ed4549dfb0ddeaf40e66

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Genetics

In Paleontology

Citations in the corpus

Climate change and evolution: disentangling environmental and genetic responses (2008, background): “During the past couple of decades, an increasing number of studies have documented ‘rapid’ evolutionary transitions that have occurred within a time span of a few generations or so (see Hendry & Kinnison 1999; Kinnison & Hendry 2001; Reznick & Ghalambor 2001; for reviews).”
Evolution on ecological time‐scales (2007, background): “Hendry & Kinnison 1999; Schluter 2000; Kinnison & Hendry 2001; Palumbi 2001; Gilchrist et al. 2004; Hargeby, Johansson & Ahnesjo 2004; Garant et al. 2005; Strauss, Lau & Carroll 2006; Hendry et al. 2006; Phillips et al. 2006).”
Founding events in species invasions: genetic variation, adaptive evolution, and the role of multiple introductions (2008, background): “…biology keywords) and citations in reviews of invasive species evolution (Barrett & Richardson 1986; Molina-Freaner & Jain 1992; Merilä et al. 1996b; Kinnison & Hendry 2001; Lee 2002; Cox 2004; Lee et al. 2004; Stockwell & Ashley 2004; Bossdorf et al. 2005; Novak & Mack 2005; Wares et al. 2005).”
Contemporary evolution meets conservation biology (2003, background): “We prefer the term ‘contemporary evolution’ in reference to evolutionary changes observable over less than a few hundred years [3, 4 ].”
Human influences on rates of phenotypic change in wild animal populations (2008, methodology): “Examples include birds colonizing new habitats within their native range (Yeh & Price 2004) or new islands outside their native range (Clegg et al .”
The evolution of phenotypic plasticity in response to anthropogenic disturbance (2010, methodology): “…numerators and, when possible, haldane numerators, which represent two complementary measures of evolutionary change (Hendry and Kinnison, 1999; Kinnison and Hendry, 2001): darwin numerator: (ln | (X 1 − X 2 ) d | − ln | (X 1 − X 2 ) u | ) haldane numerator: [(ln | (X 1 − X 2 ) d | − ln | (X 1…”
Ecological opportunity and the origin of adaptive radiations (2010, background): “One of the central insights into evolutionary ecology is that processes taking place over a single generation ultimately determine patterns of diversification and extinction over millions of years (Darwin, 1859; Huxley, 1942; Simpson, 1953; Van Valen, 1971; Schluter, 2000; Kinnison & Hendry, 2001).”
Eco-evolutionary conservation biology: contemporary evolution and the dynamics of persistence (2007, background): “However, quantitative analysis of evolutionary rates suggests that the apparent sloth of long-term evolution often reflects temporal averaging of reversals and stasis (Gingerich 1993; Reznick et al . 1997; Kinnison & Hendry 2001; Hairston et al . 2005).”
Selection against migrants contributes to the rapid evolution of ecologically dependent reproductive isolation (2004, background): “Kinnison and Hendry (2001) compiled 2151 rates of microevolution, many from studies of populations adapting to new environments, and found that the upper 90th percentile over 30 generations was about two standard deviations (their figure 4a).”
Using invasive species to study evolution. Case studies with Drosophila and salmon (2005, background): “For this reason, “contemporary evo-lution” has been suggested as the general term, with “rapid evolution” being reserved only for truly exceptional rates (Hendry and Berg 1999; Kinnison and Hendry 2001; Stockwell et al. 2003).”
Phenotypic changes in spring arrival: evolution, phenotypic plasticity, effects of weather and condition (2007, background): “The strategy used may depend on the size and ecology of the species and the availability of food in the breeding habitat, but it may also vary from year to year depending on the environmental conditions (Klaassen et al. 2006).”
Measuring rates of phenotypic evolution and the inseparability of tempo and mode (2012, background): “Paleontological samples are obviously finite, and so some proportion of the observed differences between samples must be attributable to noise in estimating sample means (Hendry and Kinnison 1999; Kinnison and Hendry 2001; Hunt 2006).”
Natural selection for resistance to the allelopathic effects of invasive plants (2005, background): “However, evolution can occur rapidly in reaction to anthropogenic effects ( Kinnison & Hendry 2001 ) and one of the most important anthropogenic environmental changes affecting natural ecosystems is the introduction of exotic species to new regions.”
Comparing rates of contemporary evolution in life-history traits for exploited fish stocks (2012, methodology): “The lack of a significant trend in 465 phenotypic studies has been attributed to examining points in time across studies and traits, 466 rather than studying temporal trends within a study or trait (Kinnison and Hendry 2001), 467 which is what was done here.”
Phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary demographic responses to climate change: taking theory out to the field (2013, background): “There is abundant evidence that phenotypic change can be rapid in the wild (Kinnison & Hendry 2001; Reznick &*Correspondence author.”
Maturation trends indicative of rapid evolution preceded the collapse of northern cod (2004, result): “In contrast, estimates in haldanes are higher than most previously published rate”