Reading Yule in light of the history and present of macroevolution

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Pennell, Matt, MacPherson, Ailene
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866914973641342976
author Pennell, Matt
MacPherson, Ailene
author_facet Pennell, Matt
MacPherson, Ailene
contents Yule's 1925 paper introducing the branching model that bears his name was a landmark contribution to the biodiversity sciences. In his paper, Yule developed stochastic models to explain the observed distribution of species across genera and to test hypotheses about the relationship between clade age, diversity, and geographic range. Here we discuss the intellectual context in which Yule produced this work, highlight Yule's key mathematical and conceptual contributions using both his and more modern derivations, and critically examine some of the assumptions of his work through a modern lens. We then document the strange trajectory of his work through the history of macroevolutionary thought and discuss how the fundamental challenges he grappled with -- such as defining higher taxa, linking microevolutionary population dynamics to macroevolutionary rates, and accounting for inconsistent taxonomic practices -- remain with us a century later.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_11661
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reading Yule in light of the history and present of macroevolution
Pennell, Matt
MacPherson, Ailene
Populations and Evolution
Yule's 1925 paper introducing the branching model that bears his name was a landmark contribution to the biodiversity sciences. In his paper, Yule developed stochastic models to explain the observed distribution of species across genera and to test hypotheses about the relationship between clade age, diversity, and geographic range. Here we discuss the intellectual context in which Yule produced this work, highlight Yule's key mathematical and conceptual contributions using both his and more modern derivations, and critically examine some of the assumptions of his work through a modern lens. We then document the strange trajectory of his work through the history of macroevolutionary thought and discuss how the fundamental challenges he grappled with -- such as defining higher taxa, linking microevolutionary population dynamics to macroevolutionary rates, and accounting for inconsistent taxonomic practices -- remain with us a century later.
title Reading Yule in light of the history and present of macroevolution
topic Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.11661