Phytospreading as a factor of biological evolution (revising of the idea of S. V. Meyen)

Abstract

One of the main unsolved problems of theoretical biology is the search for a mechanism of progressive evolutionary transformations. Neo-Darwinism could not explain morphophysiological complication of organisms, and, moreover, the cause of this complication. Palaeobotanist S.V. Meyen suggested the hypothesis of phytospreading, according to which new “advanced” high rank taxa appear in the equatorial belt. Later, the representatives of these taxa migrate to the middle latitudes during warming. If to supplement this hypothesis with the inverse process, which is caused by cooling, then the new hypothesis of reversible or repeated phytospreading (biospreading) can bring us closer to an understanding the mechanism of progressive evolutionary changes. The main role in this case is played by heterochrony and hybridization as a result of convergence of ancestral equatorial species and their changed descendants, which have “returned” from the middle latitudes.