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Evidence for punctuated gradualism in the Late Neogene Globorotalia tumida lineage of planktonic foraminifera

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Björn A. Malmgren ,
W. A. Berggren  and
G. P. Lohmann
Björn A. Malmgren
Affiliation:
Department of Paleontology, University of Uppsala, Box 558, S-751 22 Uppsala, Sweden, and Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
W. A. Berggren
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, and Department of Geology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
G. P. Lohmann
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
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Abstract

The warm-water planktonic foraminiferal Globorotalia tumida lineage has been studied in a 10-Myr-long stratigraphic sequence (Late Miocene through Recent) from the Indian Ocean to determine long-term evolutionary patterns through the lineage's history, and particularly to study in great detail the evolutionary transition from G. plesiotumida to G. tumida across the Miocene/Pliocene boundary. Sampling resolution was very good, between 5 × 103 and 15 × 103 yr across the Miocene/Pliocene boundary and about 2 × 105 yr otherwise. The test shape was analyzed in edge view, permitting determinations of variation in inflation and elongation of the test. Shape was analyzed quantitatively using eigenshape analysis. This method represents the greatest proportion of variation observed among a collection of shapes by the least number of different shapes. The Late Miocene (10.4-5.6 Myr B.P.) populations exhibited only minor fluctuations in shape that did not result in any net phyletic change. This period of stasis was followed by an 0.6-Myr-long period (between 5.6 and 5.0 Myr B.P.) of gradual transformation of the Late Miocene morphotype (G. plesiotumida) into the Early Pliocene morphotype (G. tumida). The populations were again more or less in stasis in the Pliocene and Pleistocene (5.0 Myr to the present day), so that no major modifications of the newly evolved Early Pliocene morphotype occurred during these 5 Myr. Thus it would appear that the G. tumida lineage, while remaining in relative stasis over a considerable part of its total duration underwent periodic, relatively rapid, morphologic change that did not lead to lineage branching. This pattern does not conform to the gradualistic model of evolution, because that would assume gradual changes throughout the history of the lineage. It also does not conform to the punctuational model, because (1) there was no speciation (lineage branching) in this lineage and (2) the transition was not rapid enough (<1% of the descendant species' duration according to definition). For this evolutionary modality we propose the term “punctuated gradualism” and suggest that this may be a common norm for evolution—at least within the planktonic foraminifera.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Fall 1983 , pp. 377 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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