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Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications
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Published on: January 19, 2018

Evolutionary uniformitarianism.

Douglas H Erwin1

  • 1Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA. Erwind@si.edu

Developmental Biology
|February 1, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Marine invertebrate morphology during the Ediacaran-Cambrian explosion reveals a time-asymmetric generation of variation. This challenges the uniformitarian view of evolution, suggesting variation types change over time.

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Area of Science:

  • Paleontology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Developmental Biology

Background:

  • The Ediacaran-Cambrian (578-510 Ma) marks a critical period for Metazoa diversification.
  • Understanding the temporal distribution of novel marine invertebrate morphologies is key to evolutionary studies.
  • Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) play a crucial role in developmental processes and morphological evolution.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a novel compilation of the temporal distribution of new marine invertebrate morphologies during the Ediacaran-Cambrian diversification.
  • To investigate the relationship between morphological diversification and the generation of variation.
  • To challenge the traditional uniformitarian view of evolutionary processes.

Main Methods:

  • Compilation of fossil data on marine invertebrate morphologies from the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary.
  • Integration of paleontological data with existing research on the hierarchical structure of gene regulatory networks.
  • Analysis of temporal patterns in morphological innovation and variation.

Main Results:

  • A new compilation detailing the temporal distribution of marine invertebrate morphologies during a key diversification event.
  • Evidence suggesting that the observed morphological distribution reflects time-asymmetric variation generation.
  • The findings indicate that the types of evolutionary variation may not be invariant through time.

Conclusions:

  • The temporal patterns of morphological evolution challenge the assumption of time-invariant variation.
  • Evolutionary processes, including the generation of variation, may exhibit temporal asymmetry.
  • This study suggests a more dynamic view of evolutionary mechanisms over geological timescales.