• Question: what is speciation? what is it significance to biological diversity?

    Asked by ashleighlou to Betul, Bridget, Ceri-Wyn, Laurel, Maria on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Maria Pawlowska

      Maria Pawlowska answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Speciation is when a species diverges or evolves into a new species. So its really just the fancy scientific word for the process during which new species emerge.

    • Photo: Laurel Fogarty

      Laurel Fogarty answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Speciation is the evolution of new species as they branch off from ones that exist already. There are a few ways this can happen. The most common is when two populations of the same species get isolated, live in different habitats and eventually adapt to their new environments. You know there is a new species when members of the two populations can no longer successfully breed with each other.

      It increases biodiversity assuming that the number of new species that are evolving is higher than the number going extinct- but this might be unlikely these days 🙁 .

    • Photo: Bridget Waller

      Bridget Waller answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      An excellent question! When competition is high (for example, in islands when space/food is limited or uniform), mutations that take advantage of different options (we call them ecological niches) will be rapidly selected for. This can result in lots of different species generating from one original species (speciation). Lots of speciation can lead to great biodiversity! I hope this answers your question!

    • Photo: Ceri-Wyn Thomas

      Ceri-Wyn Thomas answered on 20 Jun 2010:

      Speciation is the creation of a new species through a change to an animal’s genome through genetic mutation (and a few other ways) which is then ‘selected for’ by natural selection. In biology we define a ‘species’ as a group of organisms capable of breeding to produce offspring. 1 Species is distinct from another species both in its genes and its inability to breed with the other species. So all species are different in some way. Sometimes the difference is very subtle such as the difference between two butterfly species that are closely related and sometimes the difference is drastic- for example the difference between a butterfly species and a horse species etc. All these different species create diversity! The more species you have, the more diversity or difference there will be.

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