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In evolutionary biology, sympatric speciation is the evolution of a new species from a surviving ancestral species while both continue to inhabit the same geographic region. In evolutionary biology and biogeography , sympatric and sympatry are terms referring to organisms whose ranges overlap so that they occur together at least in some places.
In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. [1] An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sharing a common range exemplifies sympatric speciation .
Sympatric speciation is the formation of two or more descendant species from a single ancestral species all occupying the same geographic location. Often-cited examples of sympatric speciation are found in insects that become dependent on different host plants in the same area.
The pathways that lead from disruptive selection to sympatric speciation seldom are prone to deviation; such speciation is a domino effect that depends on the consistency of each distinct variable. These pathways are the result of disruptive selection in intraspecific competition ; it may cause reproductive isolation , and finally culminate in ...
Allopatric speciation, in which two populations of the same species are geographically isolated from one another by an extrinsic barrier and evolve intrinsic (genetic) reproductive isolation. Peripatric speciation, in which a small group of a population is separated from the main body and experiences genetic drift.
Sympatric speciation, from its beginnings with Darwin (who did not coin the term), has been a contentious issue. [41] [4]: 125 Mayr, along with many other evolutionary biologists, interpreted Darwins's view of speciation and the origin of biodiversity as arising by species entering new ecological niches—a form of sympatric speciation. [1]
Ecological speciation has been defined in various ways to identify it as distinct from nonecological forms of speciation. [2] The evolutionary biologist Dolph Schluter defines it as "the evolution of reproductive isolation between populations or subsets of a single population by adaptation to different environments or ecological niches", [ 3 ...
Current molecular studies in evolution and speciation indicate that although allopatric speciation is the norm, there are numerous cases of sympatric speciation in groups with greater mobility, such as birds. The precise mechanisms of sympatric speciation, however, are usually a form of microallopatry enabled by variations in niche occupancy ...