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Hybrid speciation

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Abstract

Botanists have long believed that hybrid speciation is important, especially after chromosomal doubling (allopolyploidy). Until recently, hybridization was not thought to play a very constructive part in animal evolution. Now, new genetic evidence suggests that hybrid speciation, even without polyploidy, is more common in plants and also animals than we thought.

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Figure 1: Hybridization and the adaptive landscape.

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Acknowledgements

I thank C. Brochmann, K. Dasmahapatra, B. Husband, S. Knapp, M. Linares, J. Mavárez, A. Meyer, P. Nosil, S. Otto, C. Salazar and S. Turelli for discussions and comments. The work was supported, in part, by grants from NERC and the DEFRA Darwin Initiative programme.

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  1. Department of Biology, Galton Laboratory, University College London, 4 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HE, UK,

    James Mallet

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Correspondence to James Mallet.

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Mallet, J. Hybrid speciation. Nature 446, 279–283 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05706

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