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Evolutionary biology

Arrhythmia of tempo and mode

Nature volume 461, pages 1219–1221 (2009)Cite this article

An exercise in experimental evolution using bacteria has been running for more than 20 years and 40,000 generations. The results to date provide a glimpse of a new world, and are cause for both delight and unease.

In his seminal book Tempo and Mode in Evolution1, palaeontologist George Gaylord Simpson argued for the value of distinguishing between the tempo of evolutionary change (the rate) and its mode (the process); moreover, he argued that tempo could be used to infer mode. Simpson's primary interest was the large-scale variations in rate and pattern evident in the fossil record. But his thesis has been far-reaching, as influential to students of organismal evolution2 as to those interested in the evolution of molecules3. Indeed, despite numerous uncertainties, molecular evolutionists use knowledge of the tempo of DNA-sequence evolution at specific loci to infer the mode of organismal evolution. On page 1243 of this issue, a group led by Richard Lenski — Barrick et al.4 — reports the results of work that provides direct insight into the rate of genomic change and organismal adaptation over 40,000 generations of evolution.

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Figure 1: Discordance in the coupling between genomic and adaptive evolution.

References

  1. Simpson, G. G. Tempo and Mode in Evolution (Columbia Univ. Press, 1944).

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  2. Gould, S. J. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Belknap, 2002).

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  3. Nei, M. Molecular Evolutionary Genetics (Columbia Univ. Press, 1987).

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  4. Barrick, J. E. et al. Nature 461, 1243–1247 (2009).

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  5. Lenski, R. E., Rose, M. R., Simpson, S. C. & Tadler, S. C. Am. Nat. 138, 1315–1341 (1991).

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  6. Kimura, M. The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).

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  1. Paul B. Rainey is at the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, and the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. p.b.rainey@massey.ac.nz,

    Paul B. Rainey

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  1. Paul B. Rainey
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Rainey, P. Arrhythmia of tempo and mode. Nature 461, 1219–1221 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/4611219a

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