Sympatric speciation
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sulgran (talk | contribs) at 07:22, May 21, 2007. It may differ significantly from current revision.
Sympatric speciation, unlike allopatric speciation, does not require large-scale geographic distance to reduce gene flow between parts of a population. Merely exploiting a new niche may automatically reduce gene flow with individuals exploiting the other niche. This may occasionally happen when, for example, herbivorous insects try out a new host plant. Sympatric speciation has never been observed in the real world.