After watching and discussing the video on speciation, read the Speciation pages on the Berkeley Evolution 101 site.
Important points to remember from all of these sources on speciation:
- Populations become isolated when there is no gene flow
- Isolated populations adapt to their own environments
- Genetic differences add up over generations
- Reproductive isolation occurs between isolated populations.
- members of different populations cannot mate successfully
- Behavior can cause isolation (behavioral isolation) - this includes differences in mating behaviors
- Geographic barriers can cause geographic isolation
- Temporal barriers can cause isolation - this is the timing of reproductive events - temporal isolation