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Nature 408, 298-299 (16 November 2000) | doi:10.1038/35042651

Open Innovation Challenges

Speciation: Fish found in flagrante delicto

Mark Kirkpatrick

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Genetic analysis of cichlid fish in Nicaraguan lakes reveals a possible case of repeated sympatric speciation: the creation of two species from one in the same environment.

A species of vertebrate gives rise to another species on average once every few million years. That is somewhat longer than the time span of a typical research grant, which is one reason why speciation is a tough subject to study.