Question

What is speciation? What are the factors of speciation? Will geographical barrier is a major factor in the speciation of a self-pollinating plant species?

Answer 1

Hint: Speciation is the evolutionary process, in which, the population evolves and form the distinct species, and Charles Darwin was the first person who identified the speciation in natural selection and he wrote a book called Origin of species, and sexual selection is said to be a likely mechanism for speciation.

Complete answer:
There are four geographical modes of speciation, which includes
> Allopatric: In this mode, the population is divided or split into two geographically isolated populations, and this isolated population undergoes both phenotypic and genotypic divergence and it may be due to different causes like selective pressures, and genetic drift, and also mutations.

> Peripatric: It is considered as a subform of allopatric speciation, where new species are formed and isolated occurs in the peripheries of the population, which prevents the exchange of genes with the main population. The founder effect and genetic drift plays an important role in the peripatric mode of speciation.

> Parapatric: There is an only partial separation of the divergent population is seen, Individuals of species may come into contact with the each other

> Sympatric: Sympatric speciation is nothing but the formation of two or more descendent species from a single ancestor.

> Factors of speciation: They include, genetic drift, natural selection, geographic isolation, and Mutation.

Geographic isolation or any geographic barriers, do not play a role in the speciation because, in plants, the reproductive organs are present in the same flower.

Note: Hybridization is the technique in which the parents of two different species are mated to each other to produce the hybrid species, it is the artificial method to produce different species, and hybridization plays a vital role in speciation.