ReviewJournal of evolutionary biology2022
What is reproductive isolation?
Review in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analysis reveals that phenotypic plasticity and divergent selection promote reproductive isolation during incipient speciation.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Pooled it
- A standardised framework for classifying estimates of reproductive isolation.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Genomic Differentiation and Outcomes of Contact Between Taxa Within a Species Complex of North Temperate Fishes.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- The Evolution of Reproductive Isolation Beyond a Strong First Barrier in Speciation Between Micro-Allopatric Host Races of a Phytophagous Ladybird Beetle,Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Genomic incompatibilities are persistent barriers when speciation happens with gene flow in Formica ants.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- A distorter-restorer system drives quantitative reproductive isolation in rice.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Nest architecture and male aggression drive sexual isolation between three-spined stickleback ecotypes.Zoological letters · 2026Article
- A light-entrained clock mechanism in a hydrozoan jellyfish synchronizes evening gamete release.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Ecological niche differentiation mediates near complete premating reproductive isolation within the Gladiolus carneus (Iridaceae) species complex.Annals of botany · 2025Article
- Review
- Admixture in a butterfly species complex creates a genomic mosaic of ancestry with distinct histories for different chromosomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Estimation of genome-wide coupling in rattlesnake hybrids provides insight into the process of speciation and its progress.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Reproductive Isolation due to Divergent Ecological Selection Is Accompanied by Vast Genomic Instability in Experimentally Evolved Yeast Populations.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Are We Witnessing a Speciation Continuum? Evidence From Current and Past Gene Flow in the Genus Oritrophium s.s. (Asteraceae) From the Tropical High Andes.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Insights Into the Almond Domestication History.Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Adaptive epigenetic divergence can facilitate ecological speciation.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Synergies between speciation and conservation science yield novel insights for mitigating the biodiversity crisis of the Anthropocene.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Variation in Eusperm Length May Reflect Reproductive Barriers and Differences in Sperm Competition Intensity AmongEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Inference of Gene Flow between Species from Genomic Data When the Mode, Direction, and Lineages are Misspecified.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Non-Ecological Speciation in Rubyspot Damselflies (Hetaerina spp.).Molecular ecology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Reproductive isolation (RI) is a core concept in evolutionary biology. It has been the central focus of speciation research since the modern synthesis and is the basis by which biological species are defined. Despite this, the term is used in seemingly different ways, and attempts to quantify RI have used very different approaches. After showing that the field lacks a clear definition of the term, we attempt to clarify key issues, including what RI is, how it can be quantified in principle, and how it can be measured in practice. Following other definitions with a genetic focus, we propose that RI is a quantitative measure of the effect that genetic differences between populations have on gene flow. Specifically, RI compares the flow of neutral alleles in the presence of these genetic differences to the flow without any such differences. RI is thus greater than zero when genetic differences between populations reduce the flow of neutral alleles between populations. We show how RI can be quantified in a range of scenarios. A key conclusion is that RI depends strongly on circumstances-including the spatial, temporal and genomic context-making it difficult to compare across systems. After reviewing methods for estimating RI from data, we conclude that it is difficult to measure in practice. We discuss our findings in light of the goals of speciation research and encourage the use of methods for estimating RI that integrate organismal and genetic approaches.
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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.