Allopatric and Sympatric speciation
A research team observed that fruit flies that live on opposite sides of a unique environment, dubbed the "Evolution Canyon," are primarily genetically affected by their surroundings even in extreme situations such as cross-breeding, migration, and even extinction.
"Despite complicating factors, such as likely gene flow between the two populations and changing demographics, the difference in the microclimate in this canyon apparently is so pervasive that it is sufficient to drive the genetic differences," said Pawel Michalak, an associate professor at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute said. "We don't have many examples of rapid environmental adaptation to stressful conditions from the field. We can simulate such conditions in a lab, but it is valuable to observe this actually happening in a natural system."
The "canyon" can be found in Mount Carmel, Israel. The regions are surprisingly close to each other (about the distance of two football fields). One side of the canyon faces north and gets about eight times as much sun as the south -facing side. The south side has been described as "tropical" while the other is more comparable to a European forest.
The drastically different environments seem to affect the fruit flies' genomes despite other factors such as migration.
