Divergent species

Divergent species is a common phrase in evolutionary biology. It is the direct consequence of adaptive radiation. Divergent species occurs when a part of the species is separated from the population by a physical barrier (flood waters, mountain range, deserts). Once separated, the species begins to adapt to their new environment (natural selection). After many generations and continual evolution of the separated species, the population eventually becomes two separate species to such an extent where they are no longer able to interbreed with one another.

An example of divergent species is the apple maggot fly. The apple maggot fly once infested the fruit of a native Australian hawthorn. In the 1860s some maggot flies began to infest apples. They multiplied rapidly because they were able to make use of an abundant food supply. Now there are two distinct species, one that reproduces when the apples are ripe, and another that continues to infest the native hawthorn. Furthermore, they have not only evolved different reproductive timing, but also now have distinctive physical characteristics.

This evolution-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Evolutionary biology Evolution stubs Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая? Anshan Xincun (Shanghai Metro) Sakakibara-Onsenguchi Station Look at other dictionaries: Divergent evolution — is the accumulation of differences between groups which can lead to the formation of new species, usually a result of diffusion of the same species to different and isolated environments which blocks the gene flow among the distinct populations… …   Wikipedia Four Species — The Four Species (Hebrew: ארבעת המינים, Arba at Ha Minim , also called Arba Minim ) are three types of branches and one type of fruit which are held together and waved in a special ceremony during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The waving of the… …   Wikipedia Ring species — Variation clinale Les variations des populations interfécondes (ici représentées par des blocs de couleurs) le long d une cline peuvent suivre une courbe, formant au final un anneau. Une variation clinale (ring species, « espèce en… …   Wikipédia en Français Phylogenetic comparative methods — When applied to comparative data, conventional statistical methods assume, in effect, that all species are completely unrelated. As if they descended from a big bang of special creation. Such a scenario can be depicted as a star phylogeny (left) …   Wikipedia Computational phylogenetics — is the application of computational algorithms, methods and programs to phylogenetic analyses. The goal is to assemble a phylogenetic tree representing a hypothesis about the evolutionary ancestry of a set of genes, species, or other taxa. For… …   Wikipedia Phylogenetic footprinting — is a technique used to identify transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) within a non coding region of DNA of interest by comparing it to the orthologous sequence in different species. When this technique is used with a large number of closely… …   Wikipedia Sequence alignment — In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences.[1]… …   Wikipedia fern — fernless, adj. fernlike, adj. /ferrn/, n. any seedless, nonflowering vascular plant of the class Filicinae, of tropical to temperate regions, characterized by true roots produced from a rhizome, triangular fronds that uncoil upward and have a… …   Universalium Fern — /ferrn/, n. a female given name. * * * Any of about 10,000–12,000 species (division Filicophyta) of nonflowering vascular plants that have true roots, stems, and complex leaves and reproduce by spores. Though ferns were once classified with the… …   Universalium Hawaiian lobelioids — The Hawaiian lobelioids are a group of flowering plants in the bellflower family, Campanulaceae, all of which are endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. This is the largest plant radiation in the Hawaiian Islands, and indeed the largest on any island… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”