Cards (5)

  • how does speciation happen?
    two populations became separated/isolation (by a geographical barrier like a river or mountain)
    These populations had different gene pools / developed different mutations 
    Each population was exposed to different environmental conditions (e.g. weather, water levels etc)
    Natural selection occurs in the two populations...
    ...which favours the alleles that best suit each environment
    So the two populations become genetically different 
    Eventually they cannot interbreed to produce fertile offspring
  • species - a group of genetically similar organisms able to interbreed and produce fertile offspring
  • speciation is the formation of a new species
  • Alfred Russel Wallace first proposed the idea of speciation before Charles Darwin
  • speciation can happed due to isolation by land mass