Editor's Summary

9 February 2006

Going it alone, together

One of the hottest controversies in evolutionary biology is sympatric speciation, the formation of new species in the absence of geographical boundaries. The controversy is about whether it happens or not: it 'should' in theory but it is difficult to prove it. Two new examples of the phenomenon are reported this week, one in fish and one (online) in plants, convincing evidence that as Darwin suggested, sympatric speciation is likely to be common. The fishy example is the formation of Amphilophus zaliosus from A. citrinellus in a volcanic crater lake in Nicaragua. And in plants, the curly palm Howea belmoreana and the thatch palm H. forsteriana diverged on Lord Howe Island, a volcanic island 480 km east of Australia in the Tasman Sea.

Letter: Sympatric speciation in Nicaraguan crater lake cichlid fish

Marta Barluenga, Kai N. Stölting, Walter Salzburger, Moritz Muschick and Axel Meyer

doi:10.1038/nature04325

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