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ECOLOGICAL IMPACT. “Using comprehensive and long-term data for Darwin's finches and freshwater copepods, they conclude that population growth rate can sometimes be at least twice as sensitive to evolutionary changes as to important ecological changes in abiotic factors, such as rainfall. In other words, evolutionary change can have substantial effects on ecological dynamics.” https://lnkd.in/dAmAVYa View in LinkedIn

HYBRID ORGANISMS. “We now know that all multicellular eukaryotes are actually functional composites, holobionts, composed of more prokaryotic cells than eukaryotic cells and expressing more prokaryotic genes than eukaryotic genes. A full understanding of the biology of “individual” eukaryotes will now depend on an understanding of their associated microbiomes.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

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