期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1977
卷号：74
期号：11
页码：5083-5087
DOI：10.1073/pnas.74.11.5083
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：The traditional view that most evolutionary change is gradual and cumulative within lineages (phyletic gradualism) has recently been challenged by the proposition that the majority of evolutionary change is concentrated within speciation events (rectangular evolution). The logical implications of these competing hypotheses for the means and variances of genetic distance among living members of rapidly and slowly speciating phylads are examined. An example of a critical test of gradual versus rectangular evolution is provided by electrophoretic analyses of genic composition in 69 species of North American Cyprinidae (minnows), and 19 species of Centrarchidae (sunfish). Rate of protein evolution appears somewhat decelerated, if anything, in the rapidly speciating minnows. Results are inconsistent with predictions of rectangular evolution, but are not demonstrably incongruent with predictions of phyletic gradualism.
