>This reminds me of a question I've thought of on occasion. There are no
>known instances of speciation occurring in selective breeding. But,
>suppose speciation did occur. How would we recognize it? Breeders
>normally work with small enough populations that it would be very unlikely
>that a sufficient number of individuals of the new species would exist
>that the breeder would have any chance of reproducing them. They would
>simply seem sterile to him, and he would write it off as a failure. So,
>how do we know speciation has never occurred in selective breeding?
But that's the whole point! a new "species" would not survive precisely
because by definition it cannot interbreed, and therefore will not leave
progeny. This is why reproductive isolation and genetic drift have been
invoked as important tools in evolution. Without them, there is no hope of
producing a new species.
Art
http://chadwicka.swac.edu