What is a speciation gene?

Question

I bumped into these words during a reading for my biology class, and I don't know what it is and does. I have been searching on the Internet, but it did not give me a complete and clear answer...Any help? Thxs!

Answer 1

Speciation genes reinforce near species divergence by preventing wasted effort on infertile hybrid offspring. The concept is to keep very closely related species from mating and producing mules; infertile hybrid offspring. It is a biological rather than physical or temporal separation of two populations.

Many near species can and, by mistake, mate to produce infertile offspring that are never going to have descendants. Every time members from these two species crossed they would waste their reproductive effort on a dead end. The only thing that matters genetically is the continuance of the genes over many generations. There are no values placed on making a good effort if it doesn't produce more generations. Soon only members who avoided mating across the two species will have produced many generations. The factor that reinforced breeding within each species was selected for. That factor whether produced by one or more genes, will come to be present in all surviving descendants. This is called assortative mating when two inbreeding populations result in separated populations due to hybrid infertility.

There are many possible mechanisms that prevent mating or fertilization between two species: Ethological (behaviorial), Mechanical isolation, Gametic isolation.