Question:

Native English speakers, which is the term in English to refer to the fact that different species....?

by Guest66240  |  earlier

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are not able to mate with each other?

In my native language, it is "reproductive isolation", in literal terms. Does this term make sense in English?

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  1. "Reproductive isolation" in English refers to different populations of the SAME species not interbreeding.

    We don't have a term to refer to non-breeding between different species.  There's no need for one.  Non-breeding with others is inherent in the definition of "species."  (There're exceptions to this generalization, of course.  The quagga and the brown zebra interbred freely -- making some question whether the quagga was really a species, or just a variety of brown zebra).


  2. Yes, the term "reproductive isolation" gives 169,000 hits on google, and seems to always refer to the same meaning.  I suspect this was a term coined by a scientist which has been literally translated into other languages.

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