'Genetics of sand' may shed new light on millions of years of evolutionary process

摘要

Dr Thomas Ezard is using the fossils of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, often less than a millimetre in size, which can be found in all of the world's oceans. The remains of their shells now resemble grains of sand to the naked eye and date back hundreds of millions of years. A new paper by Dr Ezard, published in August in the journal Methods in Ecology & Evolution, opens the debate on the best way to understand how new species come into existence (speciation).