Reproductive isolation

The mechanisms of reproductive isolation or hybridization barriers are a collection of mechanisms, behaviors and physiological processes that prevent the members of two different species that cross or mate from producing offspring, or which ensure that any offspring that may be produced are sterile. These barriers maintain the integrity of a species over time, reducing or directly impeding gene flow between individuals of different species, allowing the conservation of each species’ characteristics.The mechanisms of reproductive isolation have been classified in a number of ways. Zoologist Ernst Mayr classified the mechanisms of reproductive isolation in two broad categories: those that act before fertilization (or before mating in the case of animals, which are called pre-copulatory) and those that act after. These have also been termed pre-zygotic and post-zygotic mechanisms. The different mechanisms of reproductive isolation are genetically controlled and it has been demonstrated experimentally that they can evolve in species whose geographic distribution overlaps (sympatric speciation) or as the result of adaptive divergence that accompanies allopatric speciation.