Do macroevolutionary 'rules' and trends withstand scrutiny?

May 10, 2011 7:03 AM

To any evolutionary biologists out there- was wondering the extent to which macroevolutionary 'rules' or trends withstand scrutiny? Can you cite any studies that looking at this?
posted by Rufus T. Firefly to Science & Nature (4 answers total)

Can you explain what you mean by "withstand scrutiny"?
posted by ook at 7:40 AM on May 10, 2011

Response by poster: I guess I mean 'hold true'- are there generalised 'rules' that describe macroevolutionary patterns.
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 7:47 AM on May 10, 2011

I am not an evolutionary biologist, but I would call co-evolution a rule that describes macroevolutionary patterns:
Ninety-seven million years of angiosperm-insect association: paleobiological insights into the meaning of coevolution

I have also heard about the simplification of body plans as a "rule" in the evolution of parasites as a rule, but I couldn't dig much up at a first try.
posted by Jorus at 8:04 AM on May 10, 2011

I'm an evolutionary biologist, but I don't understand what you mean by "macroevolutionary rules".

Are you talking about things like "complexity increases with time"? The tendency of animals on islands to develop dwarfed or gigantic forms? Processes that promote speciation? The idea that species and genuses are originated / go extinct at constant rates? That asexuality is an evolutionary dead-end? That microbial endosymbionts tend to shed genes over time?

Or are those way off the mark? What are you ultimately curious about?
posted by endless_forms at 12:49 PM on May 10, 2011