http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/ Genetics Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:20:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.27 http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4435 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:20:20 +0000 #comment-4435 able to interbreed again after a period in which they couldn’t? 
 
Seems damned unlikely to me. It normally takes quite a bit of divergence to make interbreeding impossible (witness the fact that lions and tigers can still produce offspring). I suppose we could imagine a case where one very dramatic mutation made interbreeding impossible, so that mere reversal would accomplish the feat, but in the general case I think it would not happen. 
 
might be viable for prezygotic isolation … less so in postzygotic 
 
Considering that the definition of prezygotic isolation includes things like the Andaman Islanders, I’d say that we have plenty of examples of the former already – but I don’t think that’s really what TGGP was asking about.

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4436 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:40:16 +0000 #comment-4436 Could the the extinction of the neanderthals be due to interbreeding with humans creating nonviable hybrid offspring? 
 
I would imagine during those winters in northern Europe the neanderthal males would be pretty popular due to their high tolerance to cold temperatures.

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4437 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:50:33 +0000 #comment-4437 seems conditional on the isolation mechanism. seems like what you’re proposing might be viable for prezygotic isolation (e.g., species begin to interact again in their niches as they converge), but less so in postzygotic.

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4438 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:17:18 +0000 #comment-4438 How improbable would it be for a species that split to converge enough that they would be able to interbreed again after a period in which they couldn’t?

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4439 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:59:20 +0000 #comment-4439 it might be useful to catalog these sorts of relationships which refute the great-chain-of-being assumption which lay at the heart of many peoples’ understanding of evolution….

]]> http://www.gnxp.com/new/2008/08/16/humans-and-monkeys-recent-convergent-evolution-on-cox2/#comment-4440 Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:28:52 +0000 #comment-4440 for everyone with poor reading comprehension like myself, that’s the mitochondrial genome, not the nuclear genome!

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