Presenting some examples for students.

[TaO!]

I have been asked by one of my lecturers to present some examples of speciation to a bunch of first year university students. He showed them the usual stuff on antibiotic resistance etc and explained that it takes time for new species to occur, but I'm sure I've read some more impressive examples around the place. I've read the examples over at TO. Anyone know of any more examples that are particularly compelling? If you have a journal reference, that'd be excelent.

[Worldtraveller]

Google 'ring species' I beleive there is a good example of slamanders, and a bird species or two.

[Berthold]

Plants speciate quickly via polyploidy and hybridization. Cultivars such as wheat are examples, but it also happens in nature. A botanist friend might help you on this with concrete examples.

[ninewands]

I have been asked by one of my lecturers to present some examples of speciation to a bunch of first year university students. He showed them the usual stuff on antibiotic resistance etc and explained that it takes time for new species to occur, but I'm sure I've read some more impressive examples around the place. I've read the examples over at TO. Anyone know of any more examples that are particularly compelling? If you have a journal reference, that'd be excelent.
The article linked from the "Macroevolution in Action" thread is one of the best and most dramatic examples I think I've seen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4708459.stm

The three subspecies of butterfly are still able to interbreed, but cross-strain "hybrids" are not as "fit" as pure strain offspring so the sub-species become visibly distinct unless they are kept isolated. Speciation is action!

[RBH]

Speciation in apple maggot flies (http://www.sciencecases.org/maggot_fly/maggot_fly.asp). It's one of my favorite examples. There's a very nice overview and a slew of references on the linked page. This PNAS search (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/search?fulltext=apple+maggot+fly&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=GO) gets many of the technical papers on it.

RBH

[Doubting Didymus]

I'd steer clear of plant polyploidy and hybridisation examples. They're interesting in their own right, but could easily confuse matters if its an introductory level class. What you really want are allopatric examples, for which no clearer and more illustrative examples exist than ring species. If you've been looking as you say, you've probably already found the salamander and that arctic gull.

[Coragyps]

The Greenish Warblers of asia are a nice example of a ring species. They live all the way around the Himalayas, grading into five subspecies as you travel from eastern Russia down to India, and then back up through Burma and China. But where the China-side type meets the Uzbekistan-side type out in Siberia, the two don't recognize each other's songs and don't interbreed, though they look a lot alike.

http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~irwin/GreenishWarblers.html has some details and links to pdf's of the original papers. You can listen to 'em sing, too.

[Jet Black]

The Greenish Warblers.......

I can imagine a couple of ornithologists having a real fight over this

"it's green!"
"no, it's yellow"
"green"
"yellow"
"green"
"yellow"
"green"
"yellow"............

several disparaging marks and critical journal articles later

"oh ok, it's green-ish"

[Jet Black]

now I know this isn't strictly speciation, but it is kind of interesting and maybe a bit related

http://www.reptilianagenda.com/research/r102299c.shtml

[Faldage]

What's the status of the Kalihi Valley Rock Wallaby (http://www.ntskeptics.org/news/news2001-06-16.htm) these days? Scroll down to the June 7 entry.