RAZD writes:
The basic idea behind punctuated equilibria, as I understand it, is that a smaller relatively isolated population undergoes rapid evolution, possibly to adapt it to a slightly different ecology.
Right.
Then it returns to the parent ecology...
Possibly. Or it might migrate somewhere else. Or nowhere else. Or it might return to the parent ecology and co-exist with the parent. Or it might return to the parent ecology and find that there is no longer any parent population to compete against because it's gone extinct.
I thought what was novel about the punctuated equilibria idea was that the episodic nature of the fossil record wasn't necessarily just an artifact of an incomplete fossil record, that it could also be real.
-- | Percy |
| EvC Forum Director |