Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T17:54:28.067Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inferring natural selection in a fossil threespine stickleback

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Michael A. Bell,
Matthew P. Travis and
D. Max Blouw
Michael A. Bell
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-5245. E-mail: mabell@life.bio.sunysb.edu
Matthew P. Travis
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-5245. E-mail: mabell@life.bio.sunysb.edu
D. Max Blouw
Affiliation:
Biology Program and Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia V2N4Z9, Canada
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inferring the causes for change in the fossil record has been a persistent problem in evolutionary biology. Three independent lines of evidence indicate that a lineage of the fossil stickleback fish Gasterosteus doryssus experienced directional natural selection for reduction of armor. Nonetheless, application to this lineage of three methods to infer natural selection in the fossil record could not exclude random process as the cause for armor change. Excluding stabilizing selection and genetic drift as the mechanisms for biostratigraphic patterns in the fossil record when directional natural selection was the actual cause is very difficult. Biostratigraphic sequences with extremely fine temporal resolution among samples and other favorable properties must be used to infer directional selection in the fossil record.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , Fall 2006, pp. 562 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Literature Cited

Baker, J. A. 1994. Life history variation in female threespine stickleback. Pp. 144–187 in Bell, and Foster, 1994.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. 1974. Reduction and loss of the pelvic girdle in Gasterosteus (Pisces): a case of parallel evolution. National History Museum of Los Angeles County Contributions in Science 257:1–36.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. 1976. Evolution of phenotypic diversity in Gasterosteus aculeatus superspecies on the Pacific coast of North America. Systematic Zoology 25:211–227.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. 1987. Interacting evolutionary constraints in pelvic reduction of threespine sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus (Pisces, Gasterosteidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 31:347–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, M. A. 1988. Stickleback fishes: bridging the gap between population biology and paleobiology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 3:320–325.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. 1994. Paleobiology and evolution of threespine stickleback. Pp. 438–469 in Bell, and Foster, 1994.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. 2001. Lateral plate evolution in the threespine stickleback: getting nowhere fast. Genetica 112–113:445–461.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A., and Foster, S. A. 1994. The evolutionary biology of the threespine stickleback. Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, M. A., and Haglund, T. R. 1982. Fine-scale temporal variation of the Miocene stickleback Gasterosteus doryssus . Paleobiology 8:282–292.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A., Baumgartner, J. V., and Olson, E. C. 1985. Patterns of temporal change in single morphological characters in a Miocene stickleback fish. Paleobiology 11:258–271.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A., Wells, C. E., and Marshall, J. A. 1989. Mass-mortality layers of fossil stickleback fish: catastrophic kills of polymorphic schools. Evolution 43:607–619.Google ScholarPubMed
Bell, M. A., Ortí, G., Walker, J. A., and Koenings, J. P. 1993. Evolution of pelvic reduction in threespine sticklebacks: a test of competing hypotheses. Evolution 47:906–914.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bell, M. A., Aguirre, W. A., and Buck, N. J. 2004. Twelve years of contemporary armor evolution in a threespine stickleback population. Evolution 58:814–824.Google Scholar
Bergstrom, C. A., and Reimchen, T. E. 2000. Functional implications of fluctuating asymmetry among endemic populations of Gasterosteus aculeatus . Behaviour 137:1097–1112.Google Scholar
Bergstrom, C. A., and Reimchen, T. E. 2003. Asymmetry in structural defenses: insights into selective predation in the wild. Evolution 57:2128–2138.Google ScholarPubMed
Bookstein, F. L. 1987. Random-walk and the existence of evolutionary rates. Paleobiology 13:446–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bookstein, F. L. 1988. Random-walk and the biometrics of morphological characters. Evolutionary Biology 23:369–398.Google Scholar
Bowne, P. S. 1994. Systematics and morphology of the Gasterosteiformes. Pp. 28–60 in Bell, and Foster, 1994.Google Scholar
Charlesworth, B. 1984. Some quantitative methods for studying evolutionary patterns in single characters. Paleobiology 10:308–318.Google Scholar
Cheetham, A. H., and Jackson, J. B. C. 1995. Process from pattern: tests for selection versus random change in punctuated bryozoan speciation. Pp. 184–207 in Erwin, D. H. and Anstey, R. L., eds. New approaches to speciation in the fossil record. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Cheetham, A. H., Jackson, J. B. C., and Hayek, L. C. 1993. Quantitative genetics of Bryozoan phenotypic evolution. I. Rate tests for random change versus selection in differentiation of living species. Evolution 47:1526–1538.Google Scholar
Clegg, S. M., Degnan, S. M., Mortiz, C., Estoup, A., Kikkawa, J., and Owens, I. P. F. 2002. Microevolution in island forms: the roles of drift and directional selection in morphological divergence of a passerine bird. Evolution 56:2090–2099.Google Scholar
Clyde, W. C., and Gingerich, P. D. 1994. Rates of evolution in the dentition of early Eocene Cantius: comparison of size and shape. Paleobiology 20:506–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, N. J., Tanaka, M., Prescott, A., and Tickle, C. 2003. Expression of limb initiation genes and clues to the morphological diversification of threespine stickleback. Current Biology 13:R951–R952.Google Scholar
Colosimo, P. F., Peichel, C. L., Nereng, K., Blackman, B. K., Shapiro, M. D., and Schluter, D., Kingsley, D. M. 2004. The genetic architecture of parallel armor plate reduction in threespine sticklebacks. Public Library of Science, Biology 2:635–641.Google Scholar
Colosimo, P. F., Hosemann, K. E., Balabhadra, S., Villarreal, G. Jr., Dickson, M., Grimwood, J., Schmutz, J., Myers, R. M., Schluter, D., and Kingsley, D. M. 2005. Widespread parallel evolution in sticklebacks by repeated fixation of Ectodysplasin alleles. Science 307:1928–1933.Google Scholar
Cresko, W. A., Amores, A., Wilson, C., Murphy, J., Currey, M., Philips, P., Bell, M. A., Kimmel, C. B., and Postlethwait, J. A. 2004. Parallel genetic basis for repeated evolution of armor loss in Alaskan threespine stickleback populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101:6050–6055.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1859. On the origin of species by means of natural selection. Avenel Books, 1979 edition, New York.Google Scholar
Eldredge, N., and Gould, S. J. 1972. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. Pp. 83–115 in Schopf, T. J. M., ed. Models in paleobiology. Freeman, Cooper, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Erwin, D. H., and Anstey, R. L., eds. 1995. New approaches to speciation in the fossil record. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Foster, S. A., Baker, J. A., and Bell, M. A. 2003. The case for conserving threespine stickleback populations. Fisheries 28:10–18.Google Scholar
Futuyma, D. J. 2005. Evolution. Sinauer, Sunderland, Mass.Google Scholar
Giles, N. 1983. The possible role of environmental calcium levels during the evolution of phenotypic diversity in outer-Hebridean populations of the 3-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus . Journal of Zoology 199:535–544.Google Scholar
Gingerich, P. D. 1983. Rates of evolution: effects of time and temporal scaling. Science 222:159–161.Google Scholar
Gingerich, P. D. 1993. Quantification and comparison of evolutionary rates. American Journal of Science 293A:453–478.Google Scholar
Gingerich, P. D. 2001. Rates of evolution on the time scale of the evolutionary process. Genetica 112–113:127–144.Google Scholar
Gingerich, P. D., and Gunnell, G. F. 1995. Fork Basin, Wyoming, and a comparison with Neogene Siwalik lineages of Pakistan. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 115:226–247.Google Scholar
Goodfriend, G. A., and Gould, S. J. 1996. Paleontology and chronology of two evolutionary transitions by hybridization in the Bahamian land snail Cerion . Science 274:1894–1897.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. 2002. The structure of evolutionary biology. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hagen, D. W., and Blouw, D. M. 1983. Heritability of dorsal spines in the fourspine stickleback (Apeltes quadracus). Heredity 50:275–281.Google Scholar
Hagen, D. W., and Gilbertson, L. G. 1972. Geographic variation and environmental selection in Gasterosteus aculeatus L. in the Pacific Northwest, America. Evolution 26:32–51.Google Scholar
Hendry, A. P., and Kinnison, M. T. 1999. The pace of life: measuring rates of contemporary microevolution. Evolution 53:1637–1653.Google Scholar
Hurst, H. E. 1951. Long term storage capacity of reservoirs. Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineering 116:770–808.Google Scholar
Lindsey, C. C. 1962. Experimental study of meristic variation in a population of threespine sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus . Canadian Journal of Zoology 40:271–312.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 1988. The rate of polygenic mutation. Genetical Research 51:137–148.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. 1990. The rate of morphological evolution in mammals from the standpoint of the neutral expectation. American Naturalist 136:727–741.Google Scholar
Martin, R. E. 1999. Taphonomy: a process approach. Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayr, E. 1963. Animal species and evolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
McKinnon, J. S., and Rundle, J. D. 2002. Speciation in nature: the threespine stickleback model systems. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17:480–488.Google Scholar
McPhail, J. D. 1994. Speciation and the evolution of reproductive isolation in the sticklebacks (Gasterosteus) in south-western British Columbia. Pp. 399–437 in Bell, and Foster, 1994.Google Scholar
Peichel, C. L., Nereng, K. S., Ohgi, K. A., Cole, B. L. E., Colosimo, P. F., Buerkle, C. A., Schluter, D., and Kingsley, D. M. 2001. The genetic architecture of divergence between threespine stickleback species. Nature 414:901–905.Google Scholar
Penczak, T. 1962. Morphometry of the stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus L, from the Baltic Sea. Zoologica Poloniae 12:239–246.Google Scholar
Penczak, T. 1965. Morphological variation of the stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) in Poland. Zoologica Poloniae 15:3–49.Google Scholar
Perkins, M. F., Brown, F. H., Nash, W. P., McIntosh, W., and Williams, S. K. 1998. Sequence, age, and source of silicic fallout tuffs in middle to late Miocene basins of the northern Basin and Range province. Geological Society of America Bulletin 110:344–360.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M., and Crick, R. E. 1981. Evolution of single characters in the Jurassic ammonite Kosmoceras . Paleobiology 7:200–215.Google Scholar
Reimchen, T. E. 1983. Structural relationships between spines and lateral plates in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Evolution 37:931–946.Google Scholar
Reimchen, T. E. 1994. Predators and morphological evolution in threespine stickleback. Pp. 240–276 in Bell, and Foster, 1994.Google Scholar
Reznick, D. N., and Ghalambor, C. K. 2001. The population ecology of contemporary adaptations: what empirical studies reveal about the conditions that promote adaptive evolution. Genetica 112–113:183–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roopnarine, P. D. 2001. The description and classification of evolutionary mode: a computational approach. Paleobiology 27:446–465.Google Scholar
Roopnarine, P. D., Byars, G., and Fitzgerald, P. 1999. Anagenetic evolution, stratophenetic patterns, and random walk models. Paleobiology 25:41–57.Google Scholar
Roughgarden, J. 1996. Theory of population genetics and evolutionary ecology: an introduction. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Google Scholar
Sadler, P. H. 1981. Sediment accumulation rates and the completeness of stratigraphic sections. Journal of Geology 89:569–584.Google Scholar
Schindel, D. E. 1980. Microstratigraphic sampling and the limits of paleontologic resolution. Paleobiology 6:408–426.Google Scholar
Shapiro, M. D., Marks, M. E., Peichel, C. L., Blackman, B. K., Nereng, K. S., Jonsson, B., Schluter, D., and Kingsley, D. M. 2004. Genetic and developmental basis of evolutionary pelvic reduction in threespine sticklebacks. Nature 428:715–723.Google Scholar
Sheets, H. D., and Mitchell, C. E. 2001. Why the null matters: statistical tests, random walks, and evolution. Genetica 112–113:105–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, G. G. 1944. Tempo and mode in evolution. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar