Ring Species
Parapatric speciation can occur across a set of neighboring populations in which each can interbreed with closer populations but end populations are too distantly related to interbreed. This population distribution of a species is referred to as a ring species. When an ancestral population extends its range around a geographical barrier and differentiates (despite low-level gene flow), reproductive isolation occurs between terminal populations. This results in technically continuous populations that undergo parapatric speciation; fertility is negatively correlated with distance between populations, and terminal populations between ring species become distinct sister species.
Read more about this topic: Parapatric Speciation
Famous quotes containing the words ring and/or species:
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
—Alfred Tennyson (18091892)
“Let us guard against saying that death is opposed to life. The living is merely a species of the dead, and a very rare species.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)