A hybrid zone exists where the ranges of two interbreeding species or diverged intraspecific lineages meet and hybridization takes place. Hybrid zones can form in situ, but generally they result from secondary contact of the parental forms after a period of geographic isolation, which allowed their differentiation (speciation). Hybrid zones are useful in the study of the processes of speciation as they provide natural examples of gene flow between populations that are at some point between representing a single species and representing multiple species in reproductive isolation.
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“The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)