Relating phenomena across different scales is a general challenge in science. Biology is no exception, and connecting generational processes (microevolution) to the larger-scale patterns of phenotypic diversification (macroevolution) is one example. The fossil record provides a unique opportunity to study how species change in their phenotypes across different time intervals, from a few thousand to millions of years. I summarize some of the work my collaborators and I have done over the last few years to better understand the nature of within-lineage phenotypic change on short and longer timescales, and to what extent our findings have increased or reduced the gap between how we understand phenotypic evolution across the timescale continuum.
Food will be served from 12:00, the presentation starts 12:15