Chapter 38: Speciation, Adaptation, and Convergence

Speciation is divergence on the fitness landscape: allopatric, sympatric, and peripatric modes each produce reproductive isolation as a distinction boundary between populations. Adaptive radiation fills ecological niches through rapid diversification, while convergent evolution reveals universal attractors on the fitness landscape—eyes, wings, and echolocation evolved independently multiple times. Extinction is path termination, with mass extinctions reorganizing the landscape itself.