Natural Hybridization and Evolution (Oxford Series in Ecology & Evolution)

This study includes data from sources which support the paradigm of natural hybridization as an important evolutionary process. The review of these data results in a challenge of the dogma that is the explicit or implicit framework used by a large proportion of evolutionary biologists - that the process of natural hybridization is maladaptive and it is because it represents a violation of divergent evolution. In contrast, this book presents evidence of a significant role for natural hybridization in furthering adaptive evolution and evolutionary diversification in both plants and animals.