What happens if different species mate

Biology The Elements of an Ecosystem Species. May 9, Technically, they can't. Explanation: The thing that allows us to to tell two species apart is also the thing that keeps them from mating successfully, their genetics. Related questions Why is species identification important? How does mass extinction differ from species extinction? The offspring that are produced from these mixes are known as hybrids. Hybrids occur in the natural world and are a powerful evolutionary force.

They are also important in our daily lives—you probably eat hybrid plants every day. In this article, we dive into the exciting world of hybridization, describing how it occurs and what can happen when hybrids have babies. Hybridization is breeding of two different species [ 1 ]. So, for us to look into the world of hybridization, first we must understand what a species is.

Organisms that are the same species are more similar to each other than to organisms from different species. It is easy to tell some species apart, for example a hippopotamus is recognizably a different species from a cheetah see Figure 1. But what is the difference between a cheetah and a leopard? They are also different species, but a leopard looks very similar to a cheetah.

Both live in Africa, are carnivores, cats, and both even have spots. The most commonly used rules to divide organisms into species are called the Biological Species Concept [ 2 ]. These rules consider animals to be different species if they cannot breed together or if they breed together and produce infertile offspring, meaning offspring that cannot have their own babies.

Because a cheetah and a leopard cannot breed together, we consider them two different species. Other rules that divide similar animals or plants into different species are controversial. Some scientists look for physical differences, for example, differences in beak shape, body color, behavior, habitat, or geographical location. Other scientists use differences in genes to help find different species.

Every living organism has genes, which are contained in the DNA and hold the information that tells the body how to work. Within a species, there will be small differences within genes called mutations. Such mutations are what cause slight differences within a species, like different eye colors in humans. Mutations even determine whether you can roll your tongue or not! Between species, there are far more mutations between genes.

It is mutations that cause the differences in beak size or behavior that we see. If scientists are not sure if two organisms are different species, they can compare and count the mutations, to check. She and her colleagues investigated the viability of crosses between related species using two different species of clawed frog: the common laboratory animal Xenopus laevis , known as the African clawed frog, and the related X. However, when a male of the African species breeds with a female Western clawed frog, the embryos die in the early stages of development.

While mammals with different numbers of chromosomes cannot produce fertile offspring — which is the case with offspring of donkeys and horses — amphibians, fish, plants and yeast sometimes can. Biodiversity is a measure of the number of species. If many hybrids were produced, the two parent species could merge into one. That would reduce the variety of species. But hybridization sometimes can boost biodiversity. A hybrid might be able to eat a certain food that its parent species cannot.

Or maybe it can thrive in a different habitat. Eventually, it could become its own species, like the golden-crowned manakin. And that would increase — not decrease — the variety of life on Earth.

Hybrids can be different from their parents in many ways. Appearance is just one. Delmore wanted to know how hybrids might behave differently than their parents. Over time, this species has split into subspecies. These are groups of animals from the same species that live in different areas. However, when they do encounter each other, they can still breed and produce fertile young. One subspecies is the russet-backed thrush, which lives on the west coast of the United States and Canada.

As its name implies, it has reddish feathers. The olive-backed thrush has greenish-brown feathers and lives farther inland. But these subspecies overlap along the Coast Mountains in western North America. There, they can mate and produce hybrids. One difference between the two subspecies is their migration behavior. Both groups of birds breed in North America, then fly south in winter.

But russet-backed thrushes migrate down the west coast to land in Mexico and Central America. Olive-backed thrushes fly over the central and eastern United States to settle in South America.

Which directions do hybrids get? To investigate, Delmore trapped hybrid birds in western Canada. She placed tiny backpacks on them. A light sensor in each backpack helped record where the birds went.

The birds flew south to their wintering grounds, carrying the backpacks on their journey. The next summer, Delmore re-captured some of those birds back in Canada.

The length of the day and timing of midday differs depending on location. They flew somewhere down the middle. These treks, though, took the birds over rougher terrain, such as deserts and mountains. That could be a problem because those environments might offer less food to survive the long journey.

But that strategy might also cause problems.