Abstract
Explaining broad molecular, phenotypic and species biodiversity patterns necessitates a unifying framework spanning multiple evolutionary scales. Here we argue that although substantial effort has been made to reconcile microevolution and macroevolution, much work remains to identify the links between biological processes at play. We highlight four major questions of evolutionary biology whose solutions require conceptual bridges between micro and macroevolution. We review potential avenues for future research to establish how mechanisms at one scale (drift, mutation, migration, selection) translate to processes at the other scale (speciation, extinction, biogeographic dispersal) and vice versa. We propose ways in which current comparative methods to infer molecular evolution, phenotypic evolution and species diversification could be improved to specifically address these questions. We conclude that researchers are in a better position than ever before to build a synthesis to understand how microevolutionary dynamics unfold over millions of years.
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Acknowledgements
This Perspective was designed during the working group ‘Linking micro and macroevolution’ organized by J.R. with advice from D. Schluter at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Funding was provided to J.R. through a UBC grant for Catalyzing Biodiversity research. We thank K. Beall and L. Rieseberg for their support of this meeting. J.R. also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant no. 785910 and from Investissement d’Avenir grants managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA: ANR-10-LABX-25– 01; TULIP: ANR-10-LABX-0041). M.D., R.G., J.E.M., S.P.O., M.P. and D. Schluter received grant support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Grant). D. Silvestro received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (PCEFP3_187012), the Swedish Research Council (VR: 2019-04739) and the Foundation for Environmental Strategic Research, Sweden (BIOPATH). A.M. was funded by the Charles University Research Centre programme (no. 204069), the StGACR 23-05977S Czech Science Foundation and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant no. 785799. L.H.L. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 724324). C.E.W. was partially supported by US National Science Foundation grant DEB-1556963.
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J.R., L.F.H.-D., M.D., R.G., L.J.H., L.L.K., L.H.L., J.E.M., A.M., S.P.O., M.P., N.S., D. Silvestro, M.S., J.U., C.E.W. and D. Schluter participated in the workshop and designed the research. J.R. wrote the first draft. All co-authors participated in commenting and editing the paper, with substantial contribution from J.R. and D. Schluter.
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Rolland, J., Henao-Diaz, L.F., Doebeli, M. et al. Conceptual and empirical bridges between micro- and macroevolution. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1181–1193 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02116-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02116-7