Wolf Missotten’s Reviews > The Diversity of Life > Status Update

Succes in biology is an evolutionary idea. It is best defined as the longevity of a species with all its descendants.

The founder effect:
Because founder populations are so likely to be small in size, they are also likely to differ genetically from the parent population by chance alone.

Great biological diversity takes long stretches of geological time and the accumulation of large reservoirs of unique genes. The richest ecosystems build slowly, over millions of years. A panda or a sequoia represents a magnitude of evolution that comes along only rarely.

Given the right circumstances, a new species can arise in one to several generations. This vision of the origin of diversity raises a troubling question: if evolution can occur rapidly, why should we worry about species extinction? The answer is that new species are usually cheap species. They may be very different in outward traits, but they are still genetically similar to the ancestral forms

The differences between species ordinarily originate as traits that adapt them to the environment, not as devices for reproductive isolation. Speciation is a byproduct of vertical evolution.

The origin of species is simply the evolution of some difference-any difference at all-that prevents the production of fertile hybrids between populations under natural conditions.

The dynamism of the evolutionary process and the individuality of species make it unlikely that a complete universal species definition will ever be fashioned.

The surveys made on Rakata and later Anak Krakatau disclosed far more haphazard buildup, with some species inexplicably going extinct and other flourishing when seemingly they should have disappeared.