Researchers believe that this particular sequence becomes unique after two species split from their common ancestor. However, researchers will be researchers. Molecular biologist Dan Mishmar and his colleagues at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel, put forward this new hypothesis; that the bar codes do not become unique just ‘because’ the two species split but they might even be important ‘drivers’ of the process of speciation. What they propose is that this particular stretch of mitochondrial DNA might be responsible for undermining the reproductive compatibility within a species when it conflicts with the sequences in the nucleus.
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