More or less the equivalent of except as seen over and among multiple species rather than a single species.

Whereas a cline represent especially trends across scales and within a single species (and therefore at least potentially a microevolutionary phenomenon), an evolutionary trend is across time and often is seen within a clade or lineage and thus across multiple species (therefore representing a macroevolutionary phenomenon).

A tendency for members of a lineage to become larger or, instead, smaller over time would be an example of an evolutionary trend. Indeed, a tendency for otherwise organisms living in a particular environment or type of environment (e.g., ) to larger or instead smaller, or whatever, too could be viewed as an evolutionary trend.

The increase in going from the - common ancestor through , early members of genus Homo and then finally later members as well as seen in Homo sapiens along with represents an evolutionary trend.

On the other hand: "…unpredictability… characterizes small-scale evolution. and students of natural selection have discovered again and again that exposed to the same will respond at different rates and with different correlated effects, none of them predictable."