In: Biology
A population of squirrels is separated into two groups by flooding and sea level rise, which brings in a new stream. The squirrels can’t cross the stream. Over time, the two populations become increasingly different and when members of the population are united, they are unable to reproduce together. This is an example of
spontaneous generation |
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sympatric speciation |
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the bottleneck effect |
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allopatric speciation |
Allopatric speciation (allo= other and patric= place) means speciation due to geographical isolation. This geographical isolation happened due to the geographical barriers like mountain ranges and water bodies. So, when a population get separated due to this geographical barriers, random mutations accumulated in these two population. Because these two populations are reproductively isolated and also the random mutations accumulated steadily, these populations diverged from each other. That means they are becoming distinct from each other, so if any case we bring them close to each other, they will not mate with each other, because now they are incompatible to reproduce with each other. So, due to geographical barrier a population of a species get separated and become distinct from each other in allopatric speciation.
Same thing in this case, a population of squirrels is separated into two groups by flooding and sea level rise, which brings in a new stream. The squirrels can’t cross the stream. Over time, the two populations become increasingly different and when members of the population are united, they are unable to reproduce together. So, it is an example of allopatric speciation.