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Majority rule: adaptation and the long-term dynamics of species

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Geerat J. Vermeij  and
Gregory P. Dietl
Geerat J. Vermeij
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of California at Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616. E-mail: vermeij@geology.ucdavis.edu
Gregory P. Dietl
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, Post Office Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut 06520. E-mail: gregory.dietl@yale.edu
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Extract

Where do species that become important players in ecosystems evolve? This simple yet crucial question must be answered if we want to understand how the biosphere is rejuvenated following a crisis. We cannot simply assume that the environments in which we find fossil remains of a given species, or living populations of a species, are the environments in which that species evolved. Take the most obvious example: Fossil human skeletons have been unearthed by the hundreds in North America, but all available evidence points to a human origin in Africa. We can often identify the general geographic origins of species and clades thanks to fossil occurrences and the application of phylogenetic techniques; but can we do likewise for more ecological aspects of the environment? Advances in population biology and in paleobiology now permit us to outline a hypothesis of the circumstances most favorable to the evolution of abundant, widespread, or ecologically powerful species, those with adaptations that are selectively advantageous across many environments, and large short-term and long-term effects in ecosystems.

Type
Matters of the Record
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2006 , pp. 173 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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