Variation and evolution in plants and microorganisms: toward a new synthesis 50 years after Stebbins.

Abstract

“The present book is intended as a progress report on [the] synthetic approach to evolution as it applies to the plant kingdom” (ref. 1, p. ix). With this simple statement, G. Ledyard Stebbins formulated the objectives of Variation and Evolution in Plants (1), published in 1950, the last of a quartet of classics that, in the second quarter of the 20th century, set forth what became known as the “synthetic theory of evolution” or “the modern synthesis.” The other books are Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species (2), Ernst Mayr's Systematics and the Origin of Species (3), and George Gaylord Simpson's Tempo and Mode in Evolution (4). The pervading theory of these books is the molding of Darwin's evolution by natural selection within the framework of rapidly advancing genetic knowledge. Stebbins said it simply: “In brief, evolution is here visualized as primarily the resultant of the interaction of environmental variation and the genetic variability recurring in the evolving population” (ref. 1, p. xi).