AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -What evidence does speciation provide for the theory of evolution by natural selection? Speciation can show us that new species don’t choose to adapt, but have changed due to diverging from an original species due to reproductive barriers.

Detailed explanation-2: -Scientists have found a lot of evidence that is consistent with allopatric speciation being a common way that new species form: Geographic patterns: If allopatric speciation happens, we’d predict that populations of the same species in different geographic locations would be genetically different.

Detailed explanation-3: -Tests of parallel evolution of reproductive isolation, trait-based assortative mating, and reproductive isolation by active selection have demonstrated that ecological speciation is a common means by which new species arise.

Detailed explanation-4: -Speciation produces diversity of life on earth by splitting evolutionary lineages through the evolution of reproductive isolation between populations of a species. In ecological speciation, divergent natural selection to adapt to different environments results in the evolution of reproductive isolation.

Detailed explanation-5: -Natural selection has always been considered a key component of adaptive divergence and speciation (2, 15–17), but the importance of selection has been eclipsed in recent decades by a strong focus on the geography of speciation and on the purely genetic mechanisms by which reproductive isolation evolves (see refs.