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SPECTRUM. “Recognition of the rate and ecological significance of adaptive evolution is heralding a new epoch where the dichotomy between ecological and evolutionary time and, more importantly, between ecological and evolutionary processes is breaking down.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

EMBEDDED IN MICROBIAL ECOSYSTEM. “Furthermore, it has long been known that every multicellular organism coexists with large prokaryotic ecosystems—microbiomes—that completely cover its surfaces, external and internal. Recent studies have shown that these associated microbiomes are not mere contamination, but instead have profound effects upon the function and fitness of the multicellular organism.” https://lnkd.in/ewnQ9Vg View in LinkedIn

MACROEVOLUTION. “Darwin's finches, which show such dramatic change on short time-scales, continue to appear much as they did millions of years ago. Macroevolution may thus require progressive change in the environment that takes evolution consistently in one direction (such as increased body size). It is important to note, however, that this may sometimes be a gradual process, interspersed with many temporary reversals of direction.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

ONLY A CHINK OF REALITY. “These discoveries are showing that the full biosphere is substantially more complex than previously conceived and that a conception of nature based only on the biology of multicellular eukaryotes (MCEs) is decidedly inadequate. Attempting to understand and describe the entire biosphere using concepts based only on the biology of MCEs is like trying to understand all vertebrates by studying only hummingbirds.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

REVERSIBLE AND EPHEMERAL. “If contemporary evolution is often reversible and rarely accumulates into long-term changes, how do larger changes in taxa ultimately arise?” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

FIRST GLIMPSE. “Metagenomics has become almost a new kind of instrument—a sort of “genomoscope”—that allows researchers to see the prokaryotic world for the first time. The view is stunning. It is essentially Humboldt in a new biosphere: wherever the genomoscope is pointed, new discoveries swarm into view.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

BUFFERED EFFECT. “Although the global scale of environment change caused by human disturbance is largely unprecedented in evolutionary history, the magnitude of the resulting genetic change does not seem abnormally high.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

GLOBALIZATION IMPACT. “Since humans are reshaping selective environments across the globe, contemporary evolution may be more frequent, and directional selection may be less ephemeral, in the present than under more ‘natural’ conditions prevailing in the past.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this expansion of the observation of the rapid evolution of Great Tits’ beaks in response to bird feeders in the UK. The backstory tells us that this is a broad trend across taxa, and that it is particularly observed in response to human disruption. The opportunity to watch in real time vertebrate evolution in the making is an extraordinary step forward, as such studies in the past have been confined to yeast and bacteria. View in LinkedIn

ACCESSIBLE TO STUDY. “Empirically, the reality of contemporary evolution means that many evolutionary processes thought approachable only by inferential study, such as speciation, can now be studied directly.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn