Science & technology | Speciation

How female choice creates new species

If a male looks wrong, he is wrong

Friend or foe?

NATURAL SELECTION, as propounded in Charles Darwin’s master work, “On the Origin of Species”, explains how organisms evolve and adapt to their circumstances. Paradoxically, though, it is a bit hazy on the actual subject of its title, namely how parent species spin off new, daughter species. Darwin recognised that diverse ecological niches encourage speciation (though he did not use those as-yet-uninvented terms). But he did not ask how incipient daughter species were prevented from remixing before they had properly separated.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Choice and determinism”

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