LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS ON SPECIATION: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN 40 YEARS?

Abstract

We integrate experimental studies attempting to duplicate all or part of the speciation process under controlled laboratory conditions and ask what general conclusions can be made concerning the major models of speciation. Strong support is found for the evolution of reproductive isolation via pleiotropy and/or genetic hitchhiking with or without allopatry. Little or no support is found for the bottleneck and reinforcement models of speciation. We conclude that the role of geographical separation in generating allopatry (i.e., zero gene flow induced by spatial isolation) has been overemphasized in the past, whereas its role in generating diminished gene flow in combination with strong, discontinuous, and multifarious divergent selection, has been largely unappreciated.

Keywords: Allopatric speciation; genetic revolutions; nonallopatric speciation; population bottleneck; postzygotic isolation; prezygotic isolation; reinforcement; reproductive isolation; speciation.