- The process of evolution
The concept of species
Darwin sought to explain the splendid multiformity of the living world—thousands of organisms of the most diverse kinds, from lowly worms to spectacular birds of paradise, from yeasts and molds to oaks and orchids. His On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) is a sustained argument showing that the diversity of organisms and their characteristics can be explained as the result of natural processes.
Species come about as the result of gradual change prompted by natural selection. Environments are continuously changing in time, and they differ from place to place. Natural selection therefore favours different characteristics in different situations. The accumulation of differences eventually yields different species.
Everyday experience teaches that there are different kinds of organisms and also teaches how to identify them. Everyone knows that people belong to the human species and are different from cats and dogs, which in turn are different from each other. There are differences between people, as well as between cats and dogs, but individuals of the same species are considerably more similar among themselves than they are to individuals of other species.
External similarity is the common basis for identifying individuals as being members of the same species. Nevertheless, there is more to a species than outward appearance. A bulldog, a terrier, and a golden retriever are very different in appearance, but they are all dogs because they can interbreed. People can also interbreed with one another, and so can cats with other cats, but people cannot interbreed with dogs or cats, nor can these with each other. It is clear then that, although species are usually identified by appearance, there is something basic, of great biological significance, behind similarity of appearance—individuals of a species are able to interbreed with one another but not with members of other species. This is expressed in the following definition: Species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups. (For an explanation and discussion of this concept, see below Reproductive isolation.)
The ability to interbreed is of great evolutionary importance, because it determines that species are independent evolutionary units. Genetic changes originate in single individuals; they can spread by natural selection to all members of the species but not to individuals of other species. Individuals of a species share a common gene pool that is not shared by individuals of other species. Different species have independently evolving gene pools because they are reproductively isolated.
Although the criterion for deciding whether individuals belong to the same species is clear, there may be ambiguity in practice for two reasons. One is lack of knowledge—it may not be known for certain whether individuals living in different sites belong to the same species, because it is not known whether they can naturally interbreed. The other reason for ambiguity is rooted in the nature of evolution as a gradual process. Two geographically separate populations that at one time were members of the same species later may have diverged into two different species. Since the process is gradual, there is no particular point at which it is possible to say that the two populations have become two different species.
A related situation pertains to organisms living at different times. There is no way to test if today’s humans could interbreed with those who lived thousands of years ago. It seems reasonable that living people, or living cats, would be able to interbreed with people, or cats, exactly like those that lived a few generations earlier. But what about ancestors removed by a thousand or a million generations? The ancestors of modern humans that lived 500,000 years ago (about 20,000 generations) are classified as the species Homo erectus. There is no exact time at which H. erectus became H. sapiens, but it would not be appropriate to classify remote human ancestors and modern humans in the same species just because the changes from one generation to the next were small. It is useful to distinguish between the two groups by means of different species names, just as it is useful to give different names to childhood and adulthood even though no single moment can separate one from the other. Biologists distinguish species in organisms that lived at different times by means of a commonsense morphological criterion: If two organisms differ from each other in form and structure about as much as do two living individuals belonging to two different species, they are classified in separate species and given different names.
The definition of species given above applies only to organisms able to interbreed. Bacteria and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), for example, reproduce not sexually but by fission. Organisms that lack sexual reproduction are classified into different species according to criteria such as external morphology, chemical and physiological properties, and genetic constitution.
The origin of species
Reproductive isolation
Among sexual organisms, individuals that are able to interbreed belong to the same species. The biological properties of organisms that prevent interbreeding are called reproductive isolating mechanisms (RIMs). Oaks on different islands, minnows in different rivers, or squirrels in different mountain ranges cannot interbreed because they are physically separated, not necessarily because they are biologically incompatible. Geographic separation, therefore, is not a RIM.
There are two general categories of reproductive isolating mechanisms: prezygotic, or those that take effect before fertilization, and postzygotic, those that take effect afterward. Prezygotic RIMs prevent the formation of hybrids between members of different populations through ecological, temporal, ethological (behavioral), mechanical, and gametic isolation. Postzygotic RIMs reduce the viability or fertility of hybrids or their progeny.
Ecological isolation
Populations may occupy the same territory but live in different habitats and so not meet. The Anopheles maculipennis group consists of six mosquito species, some of which are involved in the transmission of malaria. Although the species are virtually indistinguishable morphologically, they are isolated reproductively, in part because they breed in different habitats. Some breed in brackish water, others in running fresh water, and still others in stagnant fresh water.
Temporal isolation
Populations may mate or flower at different seasons or different times of day. Three tropical orchid species of the genus Dendrobium each flower for a single day; the flowers open at dawn and wither by nightfall. Flowering occurs in response to certain meteorological stimuli, such as a sudden storm on a hot day. The same stimulus acts on all three species, but the lapse between the stimulus and flowering is 8 days in one species, 9 in another, and 10 or 11 in the third. Interspecific fertilization is impossible because, at the time the flowers of one species open, those of the other species have already withered or have not yet matured.
A peculiar form of temporal isolation exists between pairs of closely related species of cicadas, in which one species of each pair emerges every 13 years, the other every 17 years. The two species of a pair may be sympatric (live in the same territory), but they have an opportunity to form hybrids only once every 221 (or 13 × 17) years.
Ethological (behavioral) isolation
Sexual attraction between males and females of a given species may be weak or absent. In most animal species, members of the two sexes must first search for each other and come together. Complex courtship rituals then take place, with the male often taking the initiative and the female responding. This in turn generates additional actions by the male and responses by the female, and eventually there is copulation, or sexual intercourse (or, in the case of some aquatic organisms, release of the sex cells for fertilization in the water). These elaborate rituals are specific to a species and play a significant part in species recognition. If the sequence of events in the search-courting-mating process is rendered disharmonious by either of the two sexes, then the entire process will be interrupted. Courtship and mating rituals have been extensively analyzed in some mammals, birds, and fishes and in a number of insect species (see reproductive behaviour).
Ethological isolation is often the most potent RIM to keep animal species from interbreeding. It can be remarkably strong even among closely related species. The vinegar flies Drosophila serrata, D. birchii, and D. dominicana are three sibling species (that is, species nearly indistinguishable morphologically) that are endemic in Australia and on the islands of New Guinea and New Britain. In many areas these three species occupy the same territory, but no hybrids are known to occur in nature. The strength of their ethological isolation has been tested in the laboratory by placing together groups of females and males in various combinations for several days. When the flies were all of the same species but the female and male groups each came from different geographic origins, a large majority of the females (usually 90 percent or more) were fertilized. But no inseminations or very few (less than 4 percent) took place when males and females were of different species, whether from the same or different geographic origins.
It should be added that the rare interspecific inseminations that did occur among the vinegar flies produced hybrid adult individuals in very few instances, and the hybrids were always sterile. This illustrates a common pattern—reproductive isolation between species is maintained by several RIMs in succession; if one breaks down, others are still present. In addition to ethological isolation, failure of the hybrids to survive and hybrid sterility (see below Hybrid inviability and Hybrid sterility) prevent successful breeding between members of the three Drosophila species and between many other animal species as well.
Species recognition during courtship involves stimuli that may be chemical (olfactory), visual, auditory, or tactile. Pheromones are specific substances that play a critical role in recognition between members of a species; they have been chemically identified in such insects as ants, moths, butterflies, and beetles and in such vertebrates as fish, reptiles, and mammals. The “songs” of birds, frogs, and insects (the last of which produce these sounds by vibrating or rubbing their wings) are species recognition signals. Some form of physical contact or touching occurs in many mammals but also in Drosophila flies and other insects.
Mechanical isolation
Copulation is often impossible between different animal species because of the incompatible shape and size of the genitalia. In plants, variations in flower structure may impede pollination. Two species of sage from California provide an example: The two-lipped flowers of Salvia mellifera have stamens and style (respectively, the male structure that produces the pollen and the female structure that bears the pollen-receptive surface, the stigma) in the upper lip, whereas S. apiana has long stamens and style and a specialized floral configuration. S. mellifera is pollinated by small or medium-sized bees that carry pollen on their backs from flower to flower. S. apiana, however, is pollinated by large carpenter bees and bumblebees that carry the pollen on their wings and other body parts. Even if the pollinators of one species visit flowers of the other, pollination cannot occur because the pollen does not come into contact with the style of the alternative species.
Gametic isolation
Marine animals often discharge their eggs and sperm into the surrounding water, where fertilization takes place. Gametes of different species may fail to attract one another. For example, the sea urchins Strongylocentrotus purpuratus and S. franciscanus can be induced to release their eggs and sperm simultaneously, but most of the fertilizations that result are between eggs and sperm of the same species. In animals with internal fertilization, sperm cells may be unable to function in the sexual ducts of females of different species. In plants, pollen grains of one species typically fail to germinate on the stigma of another species, so that the pollen tubes never reach the ovary where fertilization would occur.
Hybrid inviability
Occasionally, prezygotic mechanisms are absent or break down so that interspecific zygotes (fertilized eggs) are formed. These zygotes, however, often fail to develop into mature individuals. The hybrid embryos of sheep and goats, for example, die in the early developmental stages before birth. Hybrid inviability is common in plants, whose hybrid seeds often fail to germinate or die shortly after germination.
Hybrid sterility
Hybrid zygotes sometimes develop into adults, such as mules (hybrids between female horses and male donkeys), but the adults fail to develop functional gametes and are sterile.
Hybrid breakdown
In plants more than in animals, hybrids between closely related species are sometimes partially fertile. Gene exchange may nevertheless be inhibited because the offspring are poorly viable or sterile. Hybrids between the cotton species Gossypium barbadense, G. hirsutum, and G. tomentosum appear vigorous and fertile, but their progenies die in seed or early in development, or they develop into sparse, weak plants.
A model of speciation
Because species are groups of populations reproductively isolated from one another, asking about the origin of species is equivalent to asking how reproductive isolation arises between populations. Two theories have been advanced to answer this question. One theory considers isolation as an accidental by-product of genetic divergence. Populations that become genetically less and less alike (as a consequence, for example, of adaptation to different environments) may eventually be unable to interbreed because their gene pools are disharmonious. The other theory regards isolation as a product of natural selection. Whenever hybrid individuals are less fit than nonhybrids, natural selection will directly promote the development of RIMs. This occurs because genetic variants interfering with hybridization have greater fitness than those favouring hybridization, given that the latter are often present in hybrids with poor fitness.
These two theories of the origin of reproductive isolation are not mutually exclusive. Reproductive isolation may indeed come about incidentally to genetic divergence between separated populations. Consider, for example, the evolution of many endemic species of plants and animals in the Hawaiian archipelago. The ancestors of these species arrived on these islands several million years ago. There they evolved as they became adapted to the environmental conditions and colonizing opportunities present. Reproductive isolation between the populations evolving in Hawaii and the populations on continents was never directly promoted by natural selection because their geographic remoteness forestalled any opportunities for hybridizing. Nevertheless, reproductive isolation became complete in many cases as a result of gradual genetic divergence over thousands of generations.
Frequently, however, the course of speciation involves the processes postulated by both theories—reproductive isolation starts as a by-product of gradual evolutionary divergence but is completed by natural selection directly promoting the evolution of prezygotic RIMs.
The separate sets of processes identified by the two speciation theories may be seen, therefore, as different stages in the splitting of an evolutionary lineage into two species. The splitting starts when gene flow is somehow interrupted between two populations. It is necessary that gene flow be interrupted, because otherwise the two groups of individuals would still share in a common gene pool and fail to become genetically different. Interruption may be due to geographic separation, or it may be initiated by some genetic change that affects some individuals of the species but not others living in the same territory. The two genetically isolated groups are likely to become more and more different as time goes on. Eventually, some incipient reproductive isolation may take effect because the two gene pools are no longer adapting in concert. Hybrid individuals, which carry genes combined from the two gene pools, will therefore experience reduced viability or fertility.
The circumstances just described may persist for so long that the populations become completely differentiated into separate species. It happens quite commonly, however, in both animals and plants that opportunities for hybridization arise between two populations that are becoming genetically differentiated. Two outcomes are possible. One is that the hybrids manifest little or no reduction of fitness, so that gene exchange between the two populations proceeds freely, eventually leading to their integration into a single gene pool. The second possible outcome is that reduction of fitness in the hybrids is sufficiently large for natural selection to favour the emergence of prezygotic RIMs preventing the formation of hybrids altogether. This situation may be identified as the second stage in the speciation process.
How natural selection brings about the evolution of prezygotic RIMs can be understood in the following way. Beginning with two populations, P1 and P2, assume that there are gene variants in P1 that increase the probability that P1 individuals will choose P1 rather than P2 mates. Such gene variants will increase in frequency in the P1 population, because they are more often present in the progenies of P1 × P1 matings, which have normal fitness. The alternative genetic variants that do not favour P1 × P1 matings will be more often present in the progenies of P1 × P2 matings, which have lower fitness. The same process will enhance the frequency in the P2 population of genetic variants that lead P2 individuals to choose P2 rather than P1 mates. Prezygotic RIMs may therefore evolve in both populations and lead to their becoming two separate species.
The two stages of the process of speciation can be characterized, finally, by outlining their distinctions. The first stage primarily involves the appearance of postzygotic RIMs as accidental by-products of overall genetic differentiation rather than as express targets of natural selection. The second stage involves the evolution of prezygotic RIMs that are directly promoted by natural selection. The first stage may come about suddenly, in one or a few generations, rather than as a long, gradual process. The second stage follows the first in time but need not always be present.
Geographic speciation
One common mode of speciation is known as geographic, or allopatric (in separate territories), speciation. The general model of the speciation process advanced in the previous section applies well to geographic speciation. The first stage begins as a result of geographic separation between populations. This may occur when a few colonizers reach a geographically separate habitat, perhaps an island, lake, river, isolated valley, or mountain range. Alternately, a population may be split into two geographically separate ones by topographic changes, such as the disappearance of a water connection between two lakes, or by an invasion of competitors, parasites, or predators into the intermediate zone. If these types of geographic separation continue for some time, postzygotic RIMs may appear as a result of gradual genetic divergence.
In the second stage, an opportunity for interbreeding may later be brought about by topographic changes reestablishing continuity between the previously isolated territories or by ecological changes once again making the intermediate territory habitable for the organisms. If postzygotic RIMs that evolved during the separation period sufficiently reduce the fitness of hybrids of the two populations, natural selection will foster the development of prezygotic RIMs, and the two populations may go on to evolve into two species despite their occupying the same geographic territory.
Investigation has been made of many populations that are in the first stage of geographic speciation. There are fewer well-documented instances of the second stage, presumably because this occurs fairly rapidly in evolutionary time.
Both stages of speciation are present in a group of six closely related species of New World Drosophila flies that have been extensively studied by evolutionists for several decades. Two of these sibling species, D. willistoni and D. equinoxialis, each consist of groups of populations in the first stage of speciation and are identified as different subspecies. Two D. willistoni subspecies live in continental South America—D. willistoni quechua lives west of the Andes and D. willistoni willistoni east of the Andes. They are effectively separated by the Andes because the flies cannot live at high altitudes. It is not known whether their geographic separation is as old as the Andes, but it has existed long enough for postzygotic RIMs to have evolved. When the two subspecies are crossed in the laboratory, the hybrid males are completely sterile if the mother came from the quechua subspecies, but in the reciprocal cross all hybrids are fertile. If hybridization should occur in nature, selection would favour the evolution of prezygotic RIMs because of the complete sterility of half of the hybrid males.
Another pair of subspecies consists of D. equinoxialis equinoxialis, which inhabits continental South America, and D. equinoxialis caribbensis, which lives in Central America and the Caribbean. Crosses made in the laboratory between these two subspecies always produce sterile males, irrespective of the subspecies of the mother. Natural selection would, then, promote prezygotic RIMs between these two subspecies more strongly than between those of D. willistoni. But, in accord with the speciation model presented above, laboratory experiments show no evidence of the development of ethological isolation or of any other prezygotic RIM, presumably because the geographic isolation of the subspecies has forestalled hybridization between members.
One more sibling species of the group is D. paulistorum, a species that includes groups of populations well into the second stage of geographic speciation. Six such groups have been identified as semispecies, or incipient species, two or three of which are sympatric in many localities. Male hybrids between individuals of the different semispecies are sterile; laboratory crosses always yield fertile females but sterile males.
Whenever two or three incipient species of D. paulistorum have come into contact in nature, the second stage of speciation has led to the development of ethological isolation, which ranges from incipient to virtually complete. Laboratory experiments show that, when both incipient species are from the same locality, their ethological isolation is complete; only individuals of the same incipient species mate. When the individuals from different incipient species come from different localities, however, ethological isolation is usually present but far from complete. This is precisely as the speciation model predicts. Natural selection effectively promotes ethological isolation in territories where two incipient species live together, but the genes responsible for this isolation have not yet fully spread to populations in which one of the two incipient species is not present.
The eventual outcome of the process of geographic speciation is complete reproductive isolation, as can be observed among the species of the New World Drosophila group under discussion. D. willistoni, D. equinoxialis, D. tropicalis, and D. paulistorum coexist sympatrically over wide regions of Central and South America while preserving their separate gene pools. Hybrids are not known in nature and are almost impossible to obtain in the laboratory; moreover, all interspecific hybrid males at least are completely sterile. This total reproductive isolation has evolved, however, with very little morphological differentiation. Females from different sibling species cannot be distinguished by experts, while males can be identified only by small differences in the shape of their genitalia, unrecognizable except under a microscope.
