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The extended common cause: causal links between punctuated evolution and sedimentary processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2025

P. David Polly Open the ORCID record for P. David Polly [Opens in a new window]
P. David Polly*
Affiliation:
Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, U.S.A Geosciences & Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland
*
Corresponding author: P. David Polly; Email: pdpolly@pollylab.org
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Abstract

The common-cause hypothesis says that factors regulating the sedimentary record also exert macroevolutionary controls on speciation, extinction, and biodiversity. I show through computational modeling that common cause factors can, in principle, also control microevolutionary processes of trait evolution. Using Bermuda and its endemic land snail Poecilozonites, I show that the glacial–interglacial sea-level cycles that toggle local sedimentation between slow pedogenesis and rapid eolian accumulation could also toggle evolution rates between long slow phases associated with large geographic ranges and short rapid phases associated with small, fragmented ranges and “genetic surfing” events. Patterns produced by this spatially driven process are similar to the punctuated equilibria patterns that Gould inferred from the fossil record of Bermuda, but without speciation or true stasis. Rather, the dynamics of this modeled system mimic a two-rate Brownian motion process (even though the rate parameter is technically constant) in which the contrast in rate and duration of the phases makes the slower one appear static. The link between sedimentation and microevolution in this model is based on a sediment-starved island system, but the principles may apply to any system where physical processes jointly control the areal extents of sedimentary regimes and species’ distributions.

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Paleobiology , First View , pp. 1 - 16
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Paleontological Society

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Handling Editor: Linda Ivany

References

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