How Important Is Geographical Isolation In Speciation?

[Smaug]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100429172956.htm

[Auspex]

Isolation is but a condition, a canvas against which adaptive radiation may occur if the forces are present to drive it.

[Boesse]

Isolation may not necessarily be geographic - species can get sexually isolated, and still inhabit the same area; aquatic species can be isolated in stratified lake or ocean waters or by temperature gradients within those water columns (i.e. in a vertical rather than a lateral sense). There are numerous was for isolation and speciation to occur. There's also peripatric speciation, which entails critters on the extreme margins of a population to change faster than those in the middle, a sort of quasi-geographic isolation. Bobby

[Auspex]

...There's also peripatric speciation, which entails critters on the extreme margins of a population to change faster than those in the middle, a sort of quasi-geographic isolation.

The edge of the envelope is where lots of cool stuff happens.

It's enough to punctuate my equilibrium!