▪ Abstract The proper relationship between systematics practice and our understanding of
evolution has been long debated. Systematists seek to avoid assumptions about …

The remarkably rapid growth of molecular genetics during the past two decades and
concomitant advances in DNA technology have had an enormous impact in systematic and …

Systematists and population geneticists can both use molecular data sets to construct
evolutionary trees (species and gene trees, respectively), and then use the resulting …

Molecular evolution has been considered to be essentially a stochastic process, little
influenced by the pace of phenotypic change. This assumption was challenged by a study …

Systematists and evolutionary geneticists don't often talk to each other, and they routinely
dispaiage each other's work as being of little relevance to evolution. Systematists sometimes …

▪ Abstract Polymorphism, or variation within species, is common in all kinds of data and is
the major focus of research on microevolution. However, polymorphism is often ignored by …

We agree with Westoby et al. that phylogenetic comparative methods have tended to
emphasize trait changes in evolution, while treating the lack of change or the similarity …

Species-level phylogenies derived from molecular data provide an indirect record of the
speciation events that have led to extant species. This offers enormous potential for …

A “gene tree” is the phylogeny of alleles or haplotypes for any specified stretch of DNA.
Gene trees are components of population trees or species trees; their analysis entails a shift …

▪ Abstract Rates of morphological evolution exist at several hierarchical levels. The most
fundamental rate, termed instantaneous or intrinsic, is a measure of evolutionary change …