Peripatric speciation

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Comparison of allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation.

Peripatric and peripatry are terms from biogeography, referring to organisms whose ranges are closely adjacent but do not overlap, being separated by a natural barrier where these organisms do not occur – for example a wide river or a mountain range. Such organisms are usually closely related (e.g. sister species), their distribution being the result of peripatric speciation.

Peripatric speciation is a form of speciation, the formation of new species through evolution. In this form, new species are formed in isolated peripheral populations; this is similar to allopatric speciation in that populations are isolated and prevented from exchanging genes. However, peripatric speciation, unlike allopatric speciation, proposes that one of the populations is much smaller than the other.

Peripatric speciation was originally proposed by Ernst Mayr, and is related to the founder effect, because small living populations may undergo selection bottlenecks.^[1] Genetic drift is often proposed to play a significant role in peripatric speciation.^[2]

See also

• Allopatric speciation
• Adaptive radiation
• Evolutionary radiation
• Cladistics
• Phylogenetics
• Taxonomy

References