At the center of the new findings is an evolutionary concept called sympatric speciation, the possibility “for a species to split into two species without any geographic separation,” Schultz says.

Mechanisms of Speciation New examples of sympatric speciation revive some nagging questions | By Leslie Pray "A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its ...

How important is geographical isolation in speciation? Date: May 1, 2010 Source: Public Library of Science Summary: A genetic study of island lizards shows that even those that have been ...

There has been a long-standing emphasis in speciation research on describing conditions that may facilitate the build-up of premating isolation when diverging populations are undergoing gene flow.

(Phys.org)—new paper by researchers at the University of Notre Dame provides new insights into speciation, which is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise.

Yet, even under ideal conditions, sympatric speciation occurred only a fraction of the time in the model. But that does not mean sympatric speciation is not impossible in nature, the authors argue.

There are, of course, genetic constraints that work against hybrid speciation in animals. The most persistent hybrid species possess the same number of chromosomes as both parental species.

Darwin's theory of sympatric speciation — distinct speciesevolvingfrom a single parent species within a geographic area — first appeared in his 1859 book The Origin of Species.

However, sympatric speciation is often considered to be a very rare, freak event that is unlikely to have made a significant impact on current patterns of biodiversity.

IIT Bombay study reveals how sympatric speciation can occur without geographic barriers, challenging traditional views on speciation.

But a number of recent theoretical studies have suggested that so-called sympatric speciation can occur, in which different populations originate in one geographical area, but do not interbreed.

So we discover at the end that the once-dominant proponents of allopatric speciation have been soundly defeated by the upstart defenders of sympatric speciation.