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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Famous quotes containing the word zone:
“There was a continuous movement now, from Zone Five to Zone Four. And from Zone Four to Zone Three, and from us, up the pass. There was a lightness, a freshness, and an enquiry and a remaking and an inspiration where there had been only stagnation. And closed frontiers. For this is how we all see it now.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)