Aspects of Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering also known as recombinant DNA technology which is the

formation of new combination of DNA in an organism by the insertion of nucleic
acid molecules into the organism genome. This produces a Genetically Modified
Organism with a new genotype.

Vector: is a virus or bacterial plasmid is used to insert the new DNA into the
genome.

Plasmid: a circular strand of DNA found in the cytoplasm of a bacterial cell.

There are various kinds of genetic modification which are:

 Inserting a foreign gene from one species to another

 Forming a transgenic organism
 Altering an existing gene so that its products is changed
 Changing gene expression so that it is translated more often or not at all

Isolating and Cloning Genes

Cloning: is the production of many identical copies of a gene or organism

Recombinant DNA: is a type of DNA that has DNA from a

different species inserted into it.

To clone a gene the gene has to be isolated and inserted into a plasmid vector
.When the vector is inserted into the host cell multiple copies of the gene of
interest are produced when the recombinant DNA multiplies within the host cell.
Restriction Enzymes
Restriction enzymes: are types of enzymes that cuts DNA at specific points
making small fragments.

Restriction enzymes are also known as restriction endonucleases because they cut
bonds in the middle of the polynucleotide chain. The nucleotide sequences where
restriction enzymes cleave DNA molecules are called restriction sites. Restriction
enzymes cut DNA at unique sites and these enzymes are essential tools in
Recombinant DNA technology. Restriction enzymes commonly recognizes DNA
sequences that are palindromes. A palindrome is a nucleotide sequence in the
dsDNA that reads the same backwards and forward e.g. the word madam.
 Restriction enzymes make staggered cuts in the two strands of the DNA
double helix. The staggered cuts give segments of DNA with complementary single
stranded ends. These single stranded ends can be rejoined using the enzyme ligase.
Restriction enzymes catalyze the cleavage of DNA with the particular sequence of
nucleotides regardless of the type of organism from which the DNA came.
Restriction enzymes are highly specific and will only cut DNA at specific base
sequences ,4-8 bp long called recognition sequences.

Example of restriction enzyme called EcoRI

Steps Involved in recombinant DNA technology

1. Isolate DNA from the organism that has the gene of interest
2. Select a bacteria plasmid
3. Bacterial vector + DNA from the organism with the gene of interest
are both cut with a restriction enzyme
4. DNA ligase is added, and the complementary ends are joined together
making recombinant DNA of the plasmid and the organism’s gene
5. The recombinant DNA is added to bacteria that are not able to
hydrolyse sugar because their sugar gene is mutated. The bacteria
take up the recombinant DNA under special conditions and are
transformed. Transformation: the alteration of the genotype of the
bacterial cell by the uptake of foreign DNA from its surroundings
6. The transformed bacteria are placed on a nutrient medium that
contains antibiotic. If they grow this means that they have plasmid.
These bacteria multiply and the recombinant plasmids are copied
7. The complete set of bacterial clones carrying copies of recombinant
DNA from the organism that has the gene of interest is called a
genomic library
These steps are used in insulin production
Application and techniques of genetic engineering in plants

Plant Tissue culture

One advantage of plants is that they can often be regenerated from just a
single cell (totipotent) and retains the ability to develop into any cell type of a
mature plant.

Plant tissue culture can be done on either a solid medium in a petri dish
called callus culture or in liquid called suspension culture .In both cases a mass of
tissues or cells (explant) must be removed from the plant interest. In callus
culture, the tissue can be an immature embryo, a piece of apical meristem or a root
tip. For liquid culture cells must be dissociated from one another. Liquid usually use
protoplasts (plant cells from which the cell wall is removed), microspores (immature
pollen cells) or macrospores (immature egg cells).The cells are then cultured with a
mixture of nutrients and specific plant hormones that induced the
undifferentiated cells to grow .

Different types of plants respond to different hormones .To culture wheat

cells for example the explants id grown with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid which
is a plant hormone known as auxin .This stimulate plant cells to dedifferentiate
and grow .To culture tomato plants the hormone cytokinin dedifferentiates the
cells and induces cell division .In callus culture the undifferentiated cells form a
crystalline white layer on top of the solid medium (callus).
 After about a month of growth the mass of undifferentiated cells can be
transferred to medium with a lower concentration of hormone or with a different
hormone. Decreasing the amount of hormone allows some of the undifferentiated
cells to develop into a plant shoot .In most cases the small shoots look like new
blades of grass growing from the mass of cells .After another 30 days the
hormone is removed completely which allows root hairs to start growing from some
of the shoots. After another 30 days small plants can be isolated and planted into
soil .In liquid culture, hormones are also used to stimulate the growth of
undifferentiated cells, but the shoot and roots grow simultaneously.

Genetic Engineering of Plants

The first step in genetically engineering a plant is to identify gene of interest that
will confer a specific desirable trait on a plant e.g. the most desirable traits for a
crop will increase the amount of seed, grain or other plant products,increase
resistance to disease or drought .Finding the gene of interest is not easy due to
multiple interacting genes . Examples of genetic engineering in plants are making
crops such as soybean resistant to glyphosate which allows the farmer to kill the
weeds in the field without harming the soybeans. Plants can also be engineered for
novel products such as golden rice which expresses the biosynthetic pathway for
vitamin A precursors .This rice was developed for people who rely only on rice as
their diet .In order to get plants with their desired genes a Ti plasmid or gene gun
is used to transfer the DNA.
Genetic engineering enables the breeder to select a particular gene required for a
desired characteristic and modify only that gene. Examples of applications of
genetic engineering:

 Resistance to specific herbicides

 Resistance to insect pests and microbial diseases e.g. caterpillars, virus
resistant papaya
  Improvements for marketing e.g. delayed ripening in tomato
Recombinant DNA applications in medicine
 Tissue plasminogen activator
When a wound starts to bleed, a blood clot forms to stop the blood flow and
later the blood clot is dissolved. The blood of mammals including humans
contains an enzyme called plasmin that dissolves clotting proteins. Plasmin is
found in the blood in an inactive form called plasminogen. Another enzyme
called tissue plasminogen activator activates the conversion of plasminogen
to plasmin.TPA is used as a medicine for treating patients at risk from
strokes and heart attacks .
 Insulin

Gene Therapy

Gene therapy is defined as the transfer of DNA encoding a therapeutic gene to

the somatic cells of a patient in order to treat a disease. Gene therapy works by
correcting genetic defects or by expressing proteins that are therapeutically
useful. Gene therapy can also be described as a treatment or prevent of diseases
by gene transfer. Gene therapy gas found therapeutic applications in cancer,
infectious diseases and degenerative disorders. Although gene transfer in humans
has been demonstrated in several clinical trials. There is still no study showing a
cure or any benefit to the patient. Gene therapy requires that the targeted
transfer of DNA into human cells and the subsequent regulated expression of the
corresponding gene product.

Example

Cystic Fibrosis lack a gene that codes for a protein transmembrane carrier of
chloride ions which results in chlorine not being able to pass through the plasma
membrane. Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease in which abnormally think mucus
is produced in the lungs and other parts of the body. The person will be prone to
bacterial infection because mucus cannot be removed so bacteria can breed in it.
Benefits of using gene therapy to treat (CF)

 can treats previously untreatable diseases

 requires no antibiotics

 treats the cause rather than symptoms

Hazards/Disadvantages of using gene therapy to treat (CF)

 only targets the lung cells

 effect only last a few days

 manipulation of genes so there are moral and ethical issues

Ex vivo gene therapy: cells which are withdrawn from the patient and the DNA is
transferred into them before the cells are returned to the patient.

In vivo gene therapy: the changes to the cells of the patient are done by inserting
vectors inside the body

Implications of the use of genetically modified organisms on humans and the

environment.

Medical

 human growth hormone

 vaccines - e.g. for influenza

 factor VIII - a blood clotting protein

 insulin production

Agriculture

 pest resistance allows farmers to spray pesticide without killing the plants

 able to produce better yield of crops that look and taste better

 herbicide resistance allows for farmers to spray herbicide without killing

the plants
Moral and ethical issues

 herbicide resistance gene can be transferred in pollen to weed species and

lead to the development of superweeds that are resistant to herbicides

 foreign genes can pollute non-GMO and organic crops

Variation and Natural Selection

 Sexually produced organisms vary in characteristics because meiosis which
produces gametes fuse to give a sexually produced offspring.
Meiosis causes variation through:-

 crossing over - homologous chromosome pair along their length gene by gene.

Breaks occur along the chromosomes and they rejoin trading some of their genes
crossing over in prophase I

 Independent assortment - chromosomes randomly move to separate poles

during meiosis I.

Each gamete will have different combination of chromosomes and contain a mixture
from both father and mother

 Segregation of sister chromatids in Anaphase - often one chromatid is a

mixture of paternal and maternal DNA while another chromatid is not

 Random fertilization - each gamete contains a different set of DNA.

Any male gamete will fuse with any female gamete so each offspring will be
genetically different which cause variation

Types and causes of mutations

During DNA replication, transcription and translation errors occur quite

infrequently due to the mechanisms to correct mismatching of complementary base
[airing and other mistakes. Mutations that occur in gamete formation or in the very
early divisions of a zygote are inherited.

Mutation - a random unpredictable change in a DNA molecule

Mutations -Increases in the amount of genetic variability in a gene pool arise

chiefly from mutations during copying. Two kinds: Gene mutation (important in
enriching the gene pool) results from misprint in DNA copying. Chromosome
mutation (most important in re-arranging it).
Gene Mutation are changes in the sequence of nucleotides in the DNA that make up
a gene. The different types of mutations are:-
 1.Germ-line mutations are mutations in the sex cells (gametes).The
gametes with the mutation pass it on to offspring at fertilization.
Mutations can occur spontaneously or be induced by exogenous factors.
Spontaneous mutations are permanent changes that occur without any outside
influence on the cell.

2.Somatic mutations occur in regular body cells. These mutations

are passed on to daughter cells after mitosis e.g. cancer

3.Point mutations is a change in single DNA nucleotide. This means

that a specific codon is altered either by addition or deletion.e.g. Sickle cell
disease

 Deletion - loss of a base pair from the DNA molecule. Will cause a big
difference because bases read as triplet. So if one goes missing then the
entire sequence is read differently.

 Insertion - addition of a new base pair in the DNA

4.Chromosomal mutations are drastic changes in the DNA where

DNA molecules break and rejoin thereby disrupting the sequence of genetic
information
This occurs in meiosis I when paired chromosomes line up at metaphase and are
pulled apart in anaphase

Number - chromosomes are not shared equally between daughter cells

 Aneuploidy = chromosome number is not a multiple of the haploid number for

that organism
 Polyploidy = diploid gamete fertilised by a haploid gamete

 Resulting zygote is triploid (3n chromosomes)

Type of chromosome mutations

 Deletion - loss of a section of chromosome

 Duplication - doubling of a set of chromosome

 Translocation - part of a chromosome transfers to another

 Inversion - a section of a chromosome is inverted

Non-disjunction: one pair of chromosomes fails to separate, so the gamete and

zygote has an extra chromosome (e.g. Down's syndrome)
It has been estimated that at least 1 in 10,000 individuals carries a useful mutation
per generation.

•Every individual Droshophila fly, corn plant, and human being seems to carry at
least one abnormal allele.

•Only 500 mutations may be needed to transform one species into another!

•Together, gene and chromosomal mutations provide most of the genetic variability
in a population

The implications of changes in DNA nucleotide sequence for cell structure and
function in sickle cell anaemia

Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited disease caused by a single substitution in the

gene that codes for one of the polypeptide chains in haemoglobin.

Cell structure

The mutation in the DNA slightly changes the shape of the haemoglobin molecule
allowing it to clump together.

The incorrect version of the haemoglobin molecule has a hydrophobic side chain
(valine) on its outer surface where there should be a hydrophilic one (glutamate)

Cell Function

When the mutant blood cells are deprived of oxygen they become sickle shaped as
valine molecules stick to themselves.

They also cannot pass through capillaries which cause reduced blood flow and
blockages which are painful and cando damage to tissue

they cannot carry oxygen (anaemia) so breathing is affected

The anaemia is the loss of red blood cells. These red blood cells are removed by
the spleen and this results in there being a lot of blood flow to the spleen which
causes less blood flow to the rest of the body.

Sickle cell anaemia - there is a substitution for glutamate for valine. so this
causes variation from the normal glutamate. This can be passed down to offspring,
so this is genetic variation.
Down syndrome is an example of aneuploidy. It is caused from having an extra
chromosome because of the failure to separate in meiosis I anaphase. This is
variation because there is an extra chromosome, and this can be passed on to
offspring so this is genetic variation. The extra chromosome is usually due to non -
disjunction of chromosome 21 in the egg (trisomy).In a few cases the extra
chromosome is from the sperm.

Children with down syndrome have learning disabilities, a round flat face, eyelids
that appear slant upwards and they are at risk for infections and heart defect

Phenotypic factors

 Variation caused by the environment alone

o E.g. losing a limb in an accident

 Variation caused by the environment interacting with genes

o Environmental conditions can affect the expression of some genes

o This is called epigenetics

o Genes are put in certain ‘modes’ where they might behave in a certain
way

o E.g. plants reacting to light

 o It is thought that epigenetics can be passed vertically (from parent to
offspring)

Natural Selection

Natural selection is the ‘selection’ by the environment of particular individuals that

show certain variations

Three fundamental modes of selection according to their effect on the population:

•Directional selection: The phenotype at one extreme of the population distribution
has a selective advantage

•Stabilizing selection: Intermediate phenotypes are advantageous

•Disruptive selection: Intermediate phenotypes are in disadvantage

These individuals survive and are able to reproduce

 They pass on their characteristics to the next generation

 Individuals are selected by a ‘selection pressure’

How natural selection works ?

1. A gene mutates to create a new allele

2. Members of the population are genetically diverse from one another

3. The mutated allele is beneficial to the organism, e.g.

1. Allows it to run faster and escape predators

2. Allows it to survive longer without water

3. Allows it to reach food in difficult access places

4. Members of the population/species with this mutation more likely to survive

and reproduce

5. Mutated allele becomes more common as they are passed through

generations (inheritance)

6. Over time, the population becomes better adapted to its ecosystem for
survival
 Selective Forces in Natural Selection

 Availability of suitable food

 Predators

 Diseases

 Physical and chemical factors

Evolution is the change in allele frequencies in a population and is driven by

phenotypic variation. Some individuals will have phenotypic traits that make them
better adapted to their environment. They will live long and reproduce, passing on
the advantageous alleles. Over time these alleles will become more and more
frequent in the population. Allele frequency will change.

Directional selection
  Environment favours individuals at one extreme of the bell curve

 E.g. faster cheetahs are able to survive better

 The mean changes

o Mean sprint speed of cheetahs becomes faster and faster over time

Industrial melanism-The peppered moth (Biston betularia)

Before industrial revolution, lichen-covered tress were abundant in Britain

and moths were originally uniformly pale in color. Dark morphs (i.e. mutants)
were rare.
In the 1850’s, the country side near industrial areas was covered in soot and most
lichens had died: There was a gradual shift in morph abundance with darker ones
becoming more and more dominant in these areas. Work by Kettlewell in the 1950’s
showed that: In polluted areas, light forms had low survival rates and dark forms
had high survival rates. The opposite pattern happened in non-polluted lichen-
covered areas. Birds were the selecting force. Pollution promoted the survival of
dark forms, so that they mated more and survived better than the pale ones…
changing the trait of the population… the population has evolved.

€
Stabilising selection

 Environment favours individuals close to a specific value which doesn’t

change

 Individuals with extreme phenotypes are less likely to survive

 E.g. birth mass

o Too heavy = birth problems

o Too small = developmental problems

 The mean stays the same

Standard deviation becomes smaller over time

Stabilizing selection:
 The range and distribution of phenotypes then remains approximately
the same from one generation to another.
Examples
 Mortality among newborn infants: highest when they are either very
small or very large. Infants of average size are generally more likely to
survive.
 Blooming period in spring blooming plants: Species that bloom to early
in the season will produce fewer seed than those emerging later, because
pollinating insects have not emerged; plants blooming late will produce also
fewer seeds because water may be lacking or there will be increased
competition.
Disruptive Selection

 Selection against the mean

 Population becomes phenotypically divided

 E.g. coat colour in rabbits: Grey or Himalayan are better able to camouflage
into mountains compared to white rabbits

Examples
Populations of bent grass (genus Agrostis) that grows on heaps of mining refuse
contaminated with metals such as lead and copper: The soil has become so
contaminated that it is toxic to most plants, but the dense bent grass continues to
grow over these refuse heaps.
This is because certain strains of this grass have been shown to possess genes that
make them resistant to high concentrations of lead and copper
Bent grasses reproduce primarily by cross-pollination, so that the resistant grass
receives wind-borne pollen from the neighboring non-resistant plants.
Yet they maintain their genetic differentiation because non-resistant seedlings are
unable to grow in the contaminated soil and in the nearby uncontaminated soil, the
non-resistant seedlings outgrow the resistant ones

Sexual selection
Darwin was puzzled by the appearance of bizarre and exaggerated adaptations in
only one sex -usually the male- of some species.
Sexual dimorphism: differences in morphology between males and females of the
same species He realized that these features were important in attracting mates:
 Males can usually mate many times.
 Sperm is cheap
 .Females only produces a limited number of eggs. Eggs, the bearing of
offspring and parental care are expensive.
Example: Blue peacock
Inter-sex selection: If female choose males, than there will be strong
selection for those phenotypes that females find attractive (e.g. bright and
exuberant plumage of many birds)

Intra-sex selection: Males compete for territory or access to females, or

areas on mating grounds where displays take place. Male-male competition
can lead to intense battles for access to females where males use elaborate
armaments (e.g., horns of many ungulates; large size of sea lions).
Sexual selection vs Natural selection
Sexual selection operates the same way that natural selection. However: Sexual
selection does not directly adapt the individual to the environment, but does
enhance traits involved in mate acquisition. It can produce individuals with such
elaborate ornaments that they must be either energetically costly to develop,
costly to maintain, or even lead to a direct survival cost for the individual that
bears the ornament It represents a trade-off between maximizing reproduction at
the risk of reducing survival. It has the potential to evolve maladaptive traits

Speciation

 Formation of new species from existing one is called speciation

 Long and slow process

 Accumulation of changes

 Means that individuals can no longer breed to produce viable offspring

 Larger organisms tend to take longer

o Bacteria can pass through several generations in a few hours

o This is enough to allow speciation to occur

How does speciation happen?

  Reproductive barrier must be present

 Organisms are unable to breed with others in their group

 Beneficial variations are spread through reproduction

o If changes occur, but only pass to half the group, only this half will
benefit

o A collection of small changes means that these members are different

from others

o They may become so different that they can no longer breed

Allopatric Reproductive Barriers

 Geographical separation

 Physical separation prevents effective interbreeding

Sympatric Reproductive Barriers

 Reproductive barrier within the population

 Physical, social or biochemical change

 Prevents one member from breeding with another

Speciation = the formation of a new species.

 Parent species must be split into 2 groups

 Requires the isolation of one group which will go on to become new species

 Different selection pressures on each group

 Speciation occurs when individuals from the 2 groups have significant

genetic difference

o Can no longer interbreed

Isolating mechanisms

 Geographical isolation

o 2 groups separated geographically

 o Eg. ocean/mountains/rivers

o 2 groups do not meet and cannot interbreed

o ‘Allopatric speciation’ = speciation in different countries

 Reproductive isolatio

o Biological/behavioural changes arise from mutation

o Mutation only affects some individuals in the species population

o E.g. mutation causes individuals to become active at night rather than

in the day

 Changes foraging behaviour

 These individuals only meet/breed with individuals also active at

night

Genetic drift: Defined as random shifts in allele frequencies.

The gene pool of each succeeding generation is a sample of the
parental generation, thus it is subject to sampling error
variation.

The smaller the sample size, the greater the variations…

particularly if the gene is neutral.

Drifts may result in complete loss of an allele or its increase to

frequency of 1 (it is then said to become fixed).
 •Plays an important evolutionary role

 Occurs when population is small to begin with

 Small gene pool

 Chance mutations that are not beneficial or harmful might cause changes in
allele frequency

 The isolated population can ‘drift’ and become very different to the parent
population

It also refers to accidental random events that influence allele frequency.

The founder effect: a small group breaks off from a larger population and
forms a new population E.g. probably responsible for the virtually complete
lack of blood group B in American Indians, whose ancestors arrived in very
small numbers across the Bering Strait during the end of the last Ice Age,
about 10,000 years ago (Moran, 1993).

–Natural disasters (e.g. floods, storms, fires, etc) may decrease population
size drastically. The surviving population may no longer be representative of
the original in its gene pool: Bottleneck effect
 Example of Bottleneck effect

 Northern Elephant Seal:

Hunted almost to extinction. By 1890 there were about 20 animals left.

Today there are about 30,000: However, these animals are now homozygous at
every one of the gene loci that have been examined.
 Cheetahs:
Examination of 52 different loci has revealed that these animals are homozygous
at all 52 loci.
The lack of genetic variability is so profound that cheetahs will accept skin grafts
from each other just as identical twins do. Whether populations with such little
genetic diversity can continue to adapt to a changing environment remains to be
seen.
Source: http://www.bigcats.com
Founder effect

 If a new population is established from very few ‘founding’ individuals, there

will be little genetic diversity

 Small gene pool

 Specific type of genetic drift

 Be clear that genetic bottleneck and genetic drift occur as a result
of random mutations - not the other way round. Random mutations occur
irrespective of the size of the population, but if the population is notably
small, they affect a larger proportion of it, and therefore have a greater
effect and are more likely to be carried into future generations.

Example of Founder Effect

Biotic Factors - caused by other living organisms. Examples are predation,

competition for food and infection by pathogen
Abiotic factors - caused by non living component of
environment. Examples are water supply and nutrient levels

Natural selection brings about evolution because it removes the negative traits
leaving the positive and neutral traits to pass on to the next generation.
Darwin's theory

The Evolution debate- Evolution through Natural Selection (Darwin-Wallace

theory )
“On the Origin of Species (1859)”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882 )

Source: http://anthro.palomar.edu/

Darwin was a scientific observer on board H.M.S. Beagle to the Galapagos islands
Contain fauna different from that of mainland, exhibiting tortoises, birds and
other animals different in form from all the other islands.
Darwin identified 13 species of finches in the Galápagos Islands, although
there was only one in the main land.
•He observed that the Galápagos species differed from each
other in beak shape.
•He also noted that the beak varieties were associated with
diets based on different foods.

–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w56u2gv8XLs

Observations

 all organisms over reproduce

 population numbers remain constant over long periods of time

 organisms within a species vary

 some of these variations are inherited

Conclusions

 there is competition for survival

 organisms with best characteristics that best adapt them for their
environment are most likely to survive and reproduce

 if these characteristics are inherited, they will be passes on to their

offspring
Mayr's biological species concept states that all individuals of a species are able
to breed together to produce fertile offspring and are reproductively isolated
from other species.

To see if two or more individuals are of the same species they must mate together
and give fertile offspring.

Limitations of this concept

 difficult to observe mating in the wild

 specimens collected may be dead or be from a single specimen

 fossil species can not breed

 some species reproduce asexually

Gene flow :Transfer of alleles from one population to another (usually via
emigration or immigration of individuals across populations)
Many factors affect the rates of gene flow: E.g. animals actively move more than
plants; Natural barriers, such as rivers, oceans, mountains or deserts may be
obstacles preventing migration. Frequent exchanges between populations may
ultimately result in two separate populations coalesced into one.

Speciation
Biological species concept: A species consists of one or more populations whose
members freely interbreed to produce viable offspring: The most widely accepted
definition of species
It is based on reproductive barriers that prevent genetic exchanges among
members of different species .New species evolve when interbreeding populations
become isolated reproductively Shortcomings:
 It only applies to sexually reproductive organisms
 Bacteria reproduce asexually Not very useful for fossils
 Difficult to operationalize when populations are far apart geographically
Allopatric speciation is when population of a species are physically separated and
are in two different geographic locations.

So population separated geographically produces new traits to adapt to the

environment so organism change so much they become different species and can
not reproduce.
Allopatric speciation: Pupfish of the Death Valley and Ash Meadows regions of
California and Nevada Large interconnected lakes were formed during the Ice Age,
which contained one or several species of pupfishes
Over time, the lakes dried due to warmer climate, leaving isolated pools with
smaller populations of pupfish.
Genetic drift + natural selection due to differences in pond characteristics
resulted in approximately 20 distinct species, subspecies and populations

Sympatric speciation is the formation of a new species without geographical

change. There usually an abrupt change in the species so organisms are not able to
interbreed. This occurs when two or populations are in the same geographical area.

Sympatric speciation: Uncommon in animals Very common in

plants via hybridization in conjunction with allopolyploidy:
Allopolyploidy: possession of multiple sets of chromosomes
from two or more species
The hybrid species cannot reproduce with the parental species
because their gametes have different number of chromosomes
 Hybridization in conjunction with allopolyploidy leads to fast
speciation

Example of Sympatric Speciation

Overall Comparison of Allopatric and Sympatric Speciation

Isolation mechanisms are :-

Mechanisms preventing gene flow among closely related species – reproductive
barriers
 Pre-zygotic mechanisms (Factors which prevent individuals
from mating)
 Geographic isolation: Individuals do not mate because they live
in different areas
 Temporal isolation: Individuals do not mate because they are
active at different times. This may be different times of the day
or different seasons. The species mating periods may not match
 up. Individuals do not encounter one another during either their
mating periods, or at all.
 Ecological isolation: Individuals only mate in their preferred
habitat. They do not encounter individuals of other species with
different ecological preferences.
 Behavioral isolation: Individuals of different species may meet,
but one does not recognize any sexual cues that may be given. An
individual chooses a member of its own species in most cases.
 Mechanical isolation: Copulation may be attempted but transfer
of sperm does not take place. The individuals may be incompatible
due to size or morphology.
 Gametic incompatibility: Sperm transfer takes place, but the
egg is not fertilized.

 Find two examples for each Isolation mechanism.