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Evolutionary biology

Is speciation no accident?

Nature volume 387, pages 551–552 (1997)Cite this article

New species arise when previously conspecific populations no longer interbreed successfully, even when they are living in the same place. This reproductive isolation can often be explained as an incidental by-product of other evolutionary changes1. But whether natural selection ever acts directly to increase isolation has been a controversial question ever since Dobzhansky2 championed the idea in 1937. The proposal is straightforward — when populations have diverged genetically to the extent that the offspring of within-population matings are more fit than hybrid offspring, selection favours an increase in assortative mating (non-random mating resulting from a preference for similar partners). Assortative mating increases reproductive isolation, reducing the exchange of genes between the populations.

Despite the undoubted appeal of taking some of the chance out of the origin of species, this mechanism — known as reinforcement — has been challenged theoretically3, and it has never been supported by fully convincing examples. However, the idea has recently been undergoing something of a renaissance, and it will be boosted by a new study from Sætre et al.4, published on page 589of this issue, which makes a case for reinforcement in European flycatchers.

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Figure 1: An increase in assortative mating can lead to the development of a new species, in a process known as reinforcement.
Figure 2: Birds of a feather.

left–MIKE LANE, right–JUAN M. SIMON

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Ecology and Evolution Programme, The University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK

    Roger K. Butlin & Tom Tregenza

Authors
  1. Roger K. Butlin
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  2. Tom Tregenza
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Butlin, R., Tregenza, T. Is speciation no accident?. Nature 387, 551–552 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42355

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