Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:53:43.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Accounting for unequal variances in evolutionary trend mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Steve C. Wang*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081. E-mail: [email protected]

Extract

Evolutionary trends seemingly abound throughout the history of life. Perhaps the best-known example is Cope's rule, the tendency for lineages to increase in size over time. Other examples include hypothesized trends toward increasing complexity and fitness. What kinds of mechanisms cause such large-scale trends—trends occurring in higher taxa over geological time spans—and how can we effectively visualize them?

Type
Matters of the Record
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Alroy, J. 1998. Cope's rule and the dynamics of body mass evolution in North American fossil mammals. Science 280:731734.Google Scholar
Alroy, J. 2000. Understanding the dynamics of trends within evolving lineages. Paleobiology 26:319329.Google Scholar
Arnold, A. J., Kelly, D. C., and Parker, W. C. 1995. Causality and Cope's rule—evidence from the planktonic Foraminifera. Journal of Paleontology 69:203210.Google Scholar
Bokma, F. 2002. A statistical test of unbiased evolution of body size in birds. Evolution 56:24992504.Google Scholar
Boyajian, G., and Lutz, T. 1992. Evolution of biological complexity and its relation to taxonomic longevity in the Ammonoidea. Geology 20:983986.Google Scholar
Carlson, S. J. 1992. Evolutionary trends in the articulate brachiopod hinge mechanism. Paleobiology 18:344366.Google Scholar
Carrano, M. T. 2005. The Body size evolution in the Dinosauria. In Carrano, M. T., Gaudin, T. J., Blob, R. W., and Wible, J. R., eds. Amniote paleobiology: perspectives on the evolution of mammals, birds, and reptiles. University of Chicago Press, Chicago(in press).Google Scholar
Dommergues, J.-L., Laurin, B., and Meister, C. 1996. Evolution of ammonoid morphospace during the Early Jurassic radiation. Paleobiology 22:219240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felsenstein, J. 1985. Phylogenies and the comparative method. American Naturalist 125:115.Google Scholar
Fisher, D. C. 1986. Progress in organismal design. Pp. 99117in Raup, D. M. and Jablonski, D., eds. Patterns and processes in the history of life. Springer, Berlin.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1988. Trends as changes in variance: a new slant on progress and directionality in evolution. Journal of Paleontology 62:319329.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. 1996. Full house: the spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. Harmony, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1996. Body size and macroevolution. Pp. 256289in Jablonski, D., Erwin, D. H., and Lipps, J. H., eds. Evolutionary paleobiology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1997. Body-size evolution in Cretaceous mollusks and the status of Cope's rule. Nature 385:250252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knouft, J. H., and Page, L. M. 2003. The evolution of body size in extant groups of North American freshwater fishes: speciation, size distributions, and Cope's rule. American Naturalist 161:413421.Google Scholar
Maurer, B. A. 1998. The evolution of body size in birds. I. Evidence for non-random diversification. Evolutionary Ecology 12:925934.Google Scholar
McShea, D. W. 1993. Evolutionary change in the morphological complexity of the mammalian vertebral column. Evolution 47:730740.Google Scholar
McShea, D. W. 1994. Mechanisms of large-scale evolutionary trends. Evolution 48:17471763.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McShea, D. W. 1996. Metazoan complexity and evolution: is there a trend? Evolution 50:477492.Google Scholar
McShea, D. W. 1998a. Possible largest-scale trends in organismal evolution: eight “live hypotheses.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29:293318.Google Scholar
McShea, D. W. 1998b. Dynamics of diversification in state space. Pp. 91108in McKinney, M. L. and Drake, J. A., eds. Biodiversity dynamics: turnover of populations, taxa, and communities. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
McShea, D. W. 2000. Trends, tools, and terminology. Paleobiology 26:330333.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McShea, D. W. 2001. The minor transitions in hierarchical evolution and the question of a directional bias. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14:502518.Google Scholar
Norris, R. D., and Nishi, H. 2001. Evolutionary trends in coiling of tropical Paleogene planktic foraminifera. Paleobiology 27:327347.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renaud, S., Michaux, J., Mein, P., Aguilar, J. P., and Auffray, J. C. 1999. Patterns of size and shape differentiation during the evolutionary radiation of the European Miocene murine rodents. Lethaia 32:6171.Google Scholar
Saunders, W. B., and Work, D. M. 1996. Shell morphology and suture complexity in Upper Carboniferous ammonoids. Paleobiology 22:189218.Google Scholar
Saunders, W. B., Work, D. M., and Nikolaeva, S. V. 1999. Evolution of complexity in Paleozoic ammonite sutures. Science 286:760763.Google Scholar
Sidor, C. A. 2001. Simplification as a trend in synapsid cranial evolution. Evolution 55:14191442.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1973. An explanation for Cope's Rule. Evolution 27:126.Google Scholar
Trammer, J., and Kaim, A. 1997. Body size and diversity exemplified by three trilobite clades. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 42:112.Google Scholar
Verdú, M. 2004. Tempo, mode, and phylogenetic associations of embryo size evolution in angiosperms. In review.Google Scholar
Wagner, P. J. 1996. Contrasting the underlying patterns of active trends in morphologic evolution. Evolution 50:9901007.Google Scholar
Wang, S. C. 2001. Quantifying passive and driven large-scale evolutionary trends. Evolution 55:849858.Google Scholar