Sympatric speciation

What is sympatric speciation? The likelihood of sympatric speciation is perhaps the most controversial aspect of speciation, and certainly one of the most contested questions in evolutionary biology. Speciation in general is defined as the evolution of strong, genetically based ‘isolating barriers’ between populations that prevent them from exchanging genes, for example, mate discrimination, habitat differences and hybrid sterility. Sympatric speciation, from the Greek ‘same place’, involves the splitting of an ancestral species into two or more reproductively isolated groups without geographical isolation of those groups. The key aspect of sympatric speciation is that it occurs when incipient species are in physical contact with each other, potentially able to interbreed and exchange genes.