Sympatry

As sympatry (from Greek σύν syn "together", πατρίς patris " fatherland " ) is called in biology, a form of geographical distribution, in which the distribution areas of the members of two populations, subspecies or species overlap, so closely related populations in the same geographical area occur together, so that they meet and possibly may also intersect.

The sympatry represents the contrast is to Parapatrie in which there is no direct overlap between the areas but these adjacent to each other, and to allopatry, wherein the distribution ranges of closely related species or populations are spatially separated completely.

For evolutionary biology, the sympatry also plays a role in the context of sympatric speciation.

If species or populations have overlapping distributions (that are sympatric ), however, have eingenischt in different habitats, one speaks of ecological separation (as opposed to geographic separation).