The time necessary to observe a formation of a new species depends on the environment and the organism. Some organisms, like bacteria, have a greater reproductive potential than others, such as elephants. While bacterias reproduce quickly, having the potential to evolve quickly, elephants produce a new generation every 50 years. Environmental changes play a factor as individuals that are better suited to new conditions than others will produce more offspring and over multiple generations will have changed and evolved to be different enough from the old generations and have the tendency to not interbreed with each other.
An example of it is the Galapagos finches after the drought, an example from our first R exercise. As the environmental changes were so quick and drastic, the species reproduced and evolved in only 5 years or so, quick enough to result in bigger beaks to eat big seeds.
Reference:
UCSB science Line. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2021, from http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=417
Hi, you did a great job of explaining the different factors involved in determining speciation speed! I really like how you were able to connect this to our first R exercise. I agree that speciation speeds vary among organisms and that they can easily increase and decrease.
ReplyDeleteHi Vic,
ReplyDeleteIt's super interesting to me how different species have different speeds of speciation. And the fact that bacteria evolves so fast is one that we should study the most, because it can definitely be a nuisance when it comes to problems like antibacterial resistance! Good job!