Sympatry

In biology, two species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus regularly encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sharing a common range exemplifies sympatric speciation. Such speciation may be a product of reproductive isolation – which prevents hybrid offspring from being viable or able to reproduce, thereby reducing gene flow – that results in genetic divergence. Sympatric speciation does not imply secondary contact, which is speciation or divergence in allopatry followed by range expansions leading to an area of sympatry. Sympatric species or taxa in secondary contact may or may not interbreed.

Four main types of population pairs exist in nature. Sympatric populations (or species) contrast with parapatric populations, which contact one another in adjacent but not shared ranges and do not interbreed; peripatric species, which are separated only by areas in which neither organism occurs; and allopatric species, which occur in entirely distinct ranges that are neither adjacent nor overlapping. Allopatric populations isolated from one another by geographical factors (e.g., mountain ranges or bodies of water) may experience genetic – and, ultimately, phenotypic – changes in response to their varying environments. These may drive allopatric speciation, which is arguably the dominant mode of speciation.

The lack of geographic isolation as a definitive barrier between sympatric species has yielded controversy among ecologists, biologists, and zoologists regarding the validity of the term. As such, researchers have long debated the conditions under which sympatry truly applies, especially with respect to parasitism. Because parasitic organisms often inhabit multiple hosts during a life cycle, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr stated that internal parasites existing within different hosts demonstrate allopatry, not sympatry. Today, however, many biologists consider parasites and their hosts to be sympatric (see examples below). Conversely, zoologist Michael JD White considered two populations sympatric if genetic interbreeding was viable within the habitat overlap. This may be further specified as sympatry occurring within one deme; that is, reproductive individuals must be able to locate one another in the same population in order to be sympatric.

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