1) Macroevolution describes large-scale evolutionary events such as speciation, extinction, and major trends seen in the fossil record over long periods of time.
2) Stephen Jay Gould recognized three tiers of evolutionary timescales: population genetics (tens to thousands of years), rates of speciation and extinction (millions of years), and major extinction events (tens to hundreds of millions of years).
3) Differential rates of speciation and extinction among lineages over geological time, known as species selection, represents an expansion of Darwin's theory of natural selection and helps explain macroevolutionary patterns seen in the fossil record.