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Tutorials

There are a selection of geology tutorials from introductory to advanced levels covering a range of topics which together form a free online textbook.

If you enjoy reading our tutorials, please let other people know about them. If you think you can add something to the tutorial, please feel free to comment on them via the forums (you'll need to register to do this) or even better, you can write one yourself. Simply create an account if you don't have one and click "Create content"!

Below is the abstract of an example tutorial.

What kinds of isolation can lead to the formation of a new species?

According to the biological species concept, populations are different species if gene flow between them is prevented by biological differences, known as reproductive barriers. If populations exchange genes they are conspecific, i.e. belong to the species, even if they differ greatly in morphology. If they are reproductively isolated, they are different species even if they are indistinguishable phenotypically. Therefore speciation arises from the evolution of biological barriers to gene flow (Futuyma, 1998).

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