Evolution: Abrupt Changes

[RiddledWithFear]

So you're saying that a large amount of enviroment change will change a species significantly, but slow changes will happen afterwards?

Yes. New environmental conditions will encourage speciation in two ways:  it opens up room for new adaptations better suited for the new environment to be selected, and it also ween old obsolete adaptations from the population.  So rate of selection for significant changes goes up. But overtime, if the environment remains stable, then as better adaptation accumulate, there is reduced room for further improvements to adaptation, so the rate of selection for significant changes goes down.

Thanks a bunch! That makes a lot more sense. Yeah, because I had always thought evolution was always nothing but gradual, but yeah, that makes more sense.