Digging deeper: Population dynamics and individual-based fossil phylogenies

In one of my last posts, I argued for looking out for ancestor-descendant relationships when putting up an evolutionary hypothesis based on fossil data. In this post, I will explore a bit the background of individual-based phylogenies and why we should keep in mind population processes, when analysing such data sets.

The challenging and puzzling ordinary beech – a (hi)story

While working on another post, I noticed I could need an example for a pretty well-understood evolution of a plant genus through space and time. But to keep the other post a short-as-possible, the example merits its own. So here's the history of the beeches, which is a nice story to tell, also regarding how it developed scientifically.

Where have all the ancestors gone?

In contrast to neontologists, palaeontologists deal literally in the past. However, like their modern counterparts, most palaeontologists seem to have the opinion that although we all agree evolution is a fact, we will never have to deal with actual ancestors.