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Conceptual and empirical bridges between micro- and macroevolution

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 1181–1193 (2023)Cite this article

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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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Fig. 1: Timescale-dependent rates of molecular evolution, phenotypic evolution and speciation using phylogenetic or fossil data.
Fig. 2: Current and fossil data represent past evolutionary processes incompletely.
Fig. 3: A changing microevolutionary adaptive landscape integrated over a macroevolutionary timescale.

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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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS, UMR5174, Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, Université Toulouse 3 Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

    Jonathan Rolland

  2. Department of Zoology, and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    L. Francisco Henao-Diaz, Rachel Germain, Judith E. Mank, Antonin Machac, Sarah P. Otto, Mauro Sugawara & Dolph Schluter

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    L. Francisco Henao-Diaz

  4. Department of Zoology, and Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Michael Doebeli

  5. Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Luke J. Harmon

  6. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    L. Lacey Knowles

  7. Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Lee Hsiang Liow

  8. Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the CAS, Prague, Czech Republic

    Antonin Machac

  9. Departments of Quantitative and Computational Biology and Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Matt Pennell

  10. Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Nicolas Salamin

  11. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Daniele Silvestro

  12. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Daniele Silvestro

  13. Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Daniele Silvestro

  14. Mário Schenberg Institute, São Paulo, Brazil

    Mauro Sugawara

  15. Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Josef Uyeda

  16. Department of Botany, and Program in Ecology and Evolution, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA

    Catherine E. Wagner

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  1. Jonathan Rolland
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Contributions

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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Correspondence to Jonathan Rolland.

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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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