ReviewPLoS genetics2016
What Is Speciation?
Review in PLoS genetics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed.
- Life in sediments fosters 'sexual' speciation in the Shewanella baltica complex.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Codon bias variation in Staphylococcus aureus.PloS one · 2026Article
- An Overview of Orchidaceae from Brazil: Advances and Shortfalls After 400 Years of Studies.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Rapid Radiations Outweigh Reticulations During the Evolution of a 750-Million-Year-Old Lineage of Cyanobacteria.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Elucidating time divergence and biogeography of Euonymus hamiltonianus complex using complete plastome analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Habitat-specificity in SAR11 is associated with a few genes under high selection.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Are Viruses Taxonomic Units? A Protein Domain and Loop-Centric Phylogenomic Assessment.Viruses · 2024Review
- Cofitness network connectivity determines a fuzzy essential zone in open bacterial pangenome.mLife · 2024Article
- Population genomic analyses reveal that salinity and geographic isolation drive diversification in a free-living protist.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Gene inversion led to the emergence of brackish archaeal heterotrophs in the aftermath of the Cryogenian Snowball Earth.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Intraspecific variation in Gyrodactylus mediotorus and G. crysoleucas (Gyrodactylidae) from Nearctic shiners (Leuciscidae): evidence for ongoing speciation, host-switching, and parasite translocation.Parasite (Paris, France) · 2024Article
- Demographic fluctuations in bloodstreamnpj antimicrobials and resistance · 2024Article
- Ecosystem Microbiome Science.mLife · 2023Article
- Divalent metal cofactors differentially modulate RadA-mediated strand invasion and exchange in Saccharolobus solfataricus.Bioscience reports · 2023Article
- Oral microbial interactions from an ecological perspective: a narrative review.Frontiers in oral health · 2023Review
- Geographic distribution of twoJournal of biosciences · 2023Article
- New taxonomic framework for Arthrodermataceae: a comprehensive analysis based on their phylogenetic reconstruction, divergence time estimation, phylogenetic split network, and phylogeography.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2022Article
- Comprehensive Phylogenomics of Methylobacterium Reveals Four Evolutionary Distinct Groups and Underappreciated Phyllosphere Diversity.Genome biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Evolutionary Ecology of Natural ComammoxmSystems · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Concepts and definitions of species have been debated by generations of biologists and remain controversial. Microbes pose a particular challenge because of their genetic diversity, asexual reproduction, and often promiscuous horizontal gene transfer (HGT). However, microbes also present an opportunity to study and understand speciation because of their rapid evolution, both in nature and in the lab, and small, easily sequenced genomes. Here, we review how microbial population genomics has enabled us to catch speciation "in the act" and how the results have challenged and enriched our concepts of species, with implications for all domains of life. We describe how recombination (including HGT and introgression) has shaped the genomes of nascent microbial, animal, and plant species and argue for a prominent role of natural selection in initiating and maintaining speciation. We ask how universal is the process of speciation across the tree of life, and what lessons can be drawn from microbes? Comparative genomics showing the extent of HGT in natural populations certainly jeopardizes the relevance of vertical descent (i.e., the species tree) in speciation. Nevertheless, we conclude that species do indeed exist as clusters of genetic and ecological similarity and that speciation is driven primarily by natural selection, regardless of the balance between horizontal and vertical descent.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.