Speciation

I live in England. In fact, i quite like it here. I like the hills and I like the clouds. I think we have the best clouds in the world. But we English are definitely a nation which likes to be angry with everything, especially the weather. Perhaps this is an adaptation of us to warn others on our little island home of adverse weather to ensure the survival of our population, in spite of the constant wind and rain.

Hop across the channel to France, and there's a completely different story. A nation with nothing but glorious weather (or at least so they tell us, relentlessly). Imagine them now, sitting outside a Marseille bar with their patio furniture. Coincidently, the French have (for the purposes of this story) become very well adapted for making and sitting on patio furniture in the light of the sun so as to suit their environment.

What does this have to do with speciation? Well, this analogy only goes so far. For one thing, I'm not suggesting that the French have evolved into a separate species, Homo Francus. How do I know this? Just a little 'voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?' from an Englishman in his bowler hat and pinstripes à Paris avec une belle femme and you've produced a fertile F1 generation, and as we know two individuals who can successfully breed to produce fertile progeny are of the same species. But what I'm getting at is that the geographical isolation of Britain from France by 'La Manche' has resulted in two distinct populations with their own adaptations to suit the biotic and abiotic factors present in each of their environments. Perhaps, if we were to isolate both populations for a few hundreds of thousands of years longer, we might see changes in the two populations due to further chance mutations and natural selections so that two distinct species would arise. Then if we were to reintroduce the two populations to each other, no fertile offspring could be produced.

Perhaps this example isn't the most likely to happen in nature, but I think it illustrates speciation well. If nothing else, you'll remember this for the exam more than the CGP example of fur length - how dull!