Allometric scaling in phylogenies: from genes to species?

A central question in biology concerns the tempo and mode of genetic changes and the similarity with the tempo and mode of speciation. In that sense and related with the historical debate of the (dis)continuity between micro- and macro-evolution (Gradualism versus Saltationism), we try to contribute to answering the question: Do similar forces act across the gene-level and species-level evolution? In this talk, we examine the topological properties of some large sets of organism phylogenies and some large sets of protein phylogenies. Our conclusions show that the branching patterns follow allometric rules conserved across the entire history of life, from genes- to species-level.