The pace of modern life II: From rates of contemporary microevolution to pattern and process

The results suggest that macroevolutionary transitions may ultimately arise through microevolution occasionally ‘writ large’ but are perhaps temporally characterized by microev evolution ‘ writes in fits and starts’.

Abstract

Phenotypic Rates of Change Evolutionary and Ecological Database (PROCEED) is an ongoing compilation of rates of phenotypic change, typically Haldanes and Darwins, published in peer-reviewed manuscripts. This database includes studies that measure the intraspecific change in quantitative (continuous or counting) traits and report the time elapsed from the onset of environmental novelty or refer to a historical or biological event reported in other sources (e.g., a mine opening, a well-documented biological invasion). The maximum elapsed time between the environmental change and the sampling was no longer than 500 years. The included studies followed a single population through time or compared two or more populations, diverging from an originally single population where (at least) one of them was a new condition of known age. About two decades ago, a database of phenotypic rates of change in wild populations was compiled. Since then, researchers have used (and expanded) this database to examine phenotypic responses to specific types of disturbance and according to different features of the species/systems. We compile and add data regularly to the dataset. This dataset is continually being updated as more people ask it to include new variables.