Macro-evolution

http://webh01.ua.ac.be/funmorph/raoul/

• format: "guided" reading• basic papers• additional papers

• evaluation:• didactic skills (presentation additional papers) • pugnacity (during debates)• knowledge, understanding: traditional exam (oral, written prep)

The grand question

minute effects visible to thenaturalist and experimentalist

grand sweep of evolutionvisible to the comparative anatomist

and paleontologist

=??

The protagonists(a) the "revolutionists"

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)http://www.stephenjaygould.org/

The protagonists(a) the "revolutionists"

Niles Eldredge (°1943)http://www.nileseldredge.com/

The protagonists(a) the "revolutionists"

Elisabeth Vrba (°1942)http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~vrba/

                                                               

The protagonists(b) Darwin's defenders

John Maynard Smith (1920-2004 )

                                                               

The protagonists(b) Darwin's defenders

Richard Dawkins (1941)http://users.ox.ac.uk/~dawkins/

                                                               

The protagonists(b) Darwin's defenders

Daniel Dennett (1942)http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/dennettd/dennettd.htm

                                                               

The topics

1. punctuated equilibrium vs phyletic gradualism2. species sorting3. speciation4. macro-evolutionary trends5. the role of mass extinctions6. radiations7. genomic evolution8. evo-devo as a bridge between micro and macro

Topic 1

clash of the titans: punctuated equilibrium vs phyletic gradualism

Eldredge N. 1971. The allopatric model and phylogeny in Paleozoic invertebrates. Evolution 25: 156-157.

Eldredge N. & Gould S.J. 1972. Punctuated equilibrium: an alternativeto phyletic gradualism. pp. 82-116 In 'Models in Palaeobiology' (T.J.M. Schopf, ed.) Freeman, Cooper & Co, San Francisco.