Parapatric speciation

Parapatric speciation describes the process of speciation due to changes in environmental conditions.

The starting point is a species that inhabited a particular distribution area with relatively uniform environmental conditions. Now change in a particular section of the range of environmental factors or enter add new, so populated now the type sites with different environmental conditions. The sub-populations in these areas are subject to different selection pressures and therefore are increasingly independently on. In this way, distinct local subspecies may initially arise from each other, between which a hybrid zone may exist.

If the genetic differences so great that the individuals of the subspecies may no longer mate, the original species has parapatric split into two or more new species.