title: Punctuated equilibrium comes of age.
abstract: The intense controversies that surrounded the youth of punctuated equilibrium have helped it mature to a useful extension of evolutionary theory. As a complement to phyletic gradualism, its most important implications remain the recognition of stasis as a meaningful and predominant pattern within the history of species, and in the recasting of macroevolution as the differential success of certain species (and their descendants) within clades.
authors.affiliation: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Gould
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Eldredge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005580:Fossils; D008954:Models, Biological; D012641:Selection, Genetic