Species Selection: Theory and Data

摘要: Species selection in the broad sense—also termed species sorting—shapes evolutionary patterns through differences speciation and extinction rates (and their net outcome, often emergent fitness of clades) that arise by interaction intrinsic biological traits with environment. Effectmacroevolution occurs when those biotic traits, such as body size or fecundity, reside at organismic level. Strict-sense are level, geographic range population size. The fields paleontology, comparative phylogenetic analysis, macroecology, conservation biology rich examples sorting, but relatively few instances have been well documented, so extent efficacy specific processes remain poorly known. A general formalization these remains challenging, approaches drawing on hierarchical covariance models appear promising. Analyses integrating paleontological neontological data for a single set clades would be especially powerful.