Punctuated equilibrium describes
- A
Complete absence of evolutionary change maintained across all time periods (often coinciding with stasis events)
- B
Continuous, gradual evolutionary change accumulating slowly across long time periods (typical of anagenesis)
- C
Sudden mass extinction events eliminating most lineages over short time periods (often coinciding with bottleneck events)
- Dcheck_circle
Long periods of evolutionary stasis interrupted by rapid bursts of change (often coinciding with speciation events)
Explanation
Eldredge & Gould's model — explains gaps in the fossil record by punctuated bursts of change rather than gradualism.