Explain how genetic isolation stops gene flow so separated populations diverge, then connect reproductive barriers and accumulated differences to speciation in Cambridge A Level Biology questions.
Green lacewings are a family of insects with more than 1300 species.
The common green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea, is shown in Fig. 9.1.
Fig. 9.1
Two species of green lacewing, C. carnea and C. downesi, evolved from a common ancestor. The two species have populations with overlapping distributions in parts of North America.
Table 9.1 shows a comparison of the characteristics of overlapping populations of the two species.
Table 9.1
Suggest how speciation occurred to produce the two different species of green lacewing.