A team of researchers from the City University of New York working on the Península de Paraguaná in Venezuela have made a discovery that could revolutionise our understanding of how the origin of a new species takes place.
Up to now it has been accepted that the primary drivers in a species becoming isolated, and consequently developing sufficiently separate characteristics to become genetically distinct, are physical in nature – the uplift of mountains, the formation of islands, the change in the course of a river, creating barriers.
The findings of the study of two species of mouse opossums, Marmosa xerophila and Marmosa robinsoni, have now added interactions among species as another way that populations can become geographically isolated, which could promote the formation of new species.
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