Answer to Question #174546 in Microbiology for aliya

Question

a.     You are having a conversation with Cindy, the magic turtle. Cindy is very curious about the formation of species. She tells you excitedly how one species of turtle inhabited the same geographical area, but ended up forming two different species over time. She admits she is a bit surprised by this; she thought that populations needed to be geographically separated from each other in order to form two different species. Explain to Cindy how speciation can occur without geographical separation. Name the type of pathway to speciation that occurred in this case. (3 marks)

 

Speciation can occur without geographical separation through sympatric speciation. Sympatric speciation is best defined as, when two populations share the same geographic area. Ecological isolation can reduce gene flow, and mutations can lead to genetic isolation. 

is this right?

Answer 1

The pathway to speciation, in this case, is Sympatric. In sympatric speciation, organisms encounter chromosomal errors during meiosis such as polyploidy whereby the species will have an extra chromosome than the previous species. This leads to genetic variance and eventually speciation. Genetic modification can as well cause species to adopt new feeding strategies due to competition and the offspring of such species assimilate the new feeding preference or patterns and therefore creating a different species from the latter generation. The accumulated genetic differences will lead to speciation.