[josh harvey]

josh harvey  asked the Naked Scientists:

Dear Naked Scientists,
 
I would like to know which is a more appropriate explanation of speciation and evolution: adaptationism or punctuated equilibrium?

Josh, U.S.

What do you think?

[blakestyger]

Speciation happens when sympatric species (those groups of similar organisms that don't interbreed because of differences in behaviour or flowering time, for example) and allopatric species (those that could interbreed but have become geographically separated) diverge even more from the parent population - to the extent that interbreeding can no longer occur between them.