History of speciation

The scientific study of speciation, how one species evolves into new species, began around the time of Charles Darwin in the middle of the nineteenth century, when naturalists first recognized connections between the geographic distribution of species and their evolutionary origins. The field expanded considerably in the twentieth century, with Ernst Mayr as a major contributor documenting geographic patterns of speciation, and it gained further prominence during the modern evolutionary synthesis of the early twentieth century. Since then research has grown immensely, and the language used to describe speciation has become more complex, with ongoing debate over how to classify its different mechanisms and the reproductive isolation that results. The twenty-first century has brought renewed interest in the subject through new tools in molecular phylogenetics and systematics, with current understanding generally dividing speciation into modes based on how much gene flow occurs between diverging populations, although alternative classification schemes continue to be proposed. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/