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Q&A

What could cause infertility between humans living in gravity and humans in space? How could that cause speciation?

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Concerning long term effects of zero gravity on humans living in space compared with those living on super earths with 1.5x to 2x G, how could the gravity differences cause reproductive failure among the two groups? What biologic traits might be selected for (or against) that would start to cause infertility between humans living in zero gravity, and those living on planets with more gravity than earth?

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/4968. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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It could be that our reproductive system doesn't work too well in zero gravity. That would impose a strong selection pressure to adapt the reproductive system to zero gravity, which then in turn might it incompatible with those living in a gravitational field.

The inability of cross-breeding would on one hand be a physical incompatibility, but the divergent evolution might also create a genetic incompatibility (for example, if the genes for the different reproductive organs are incompatible with each other).

In any case, something like this can only happen if the groups are not cross-breeding for a sufficiently long time (which may be reinforced by other adaptations to the respective environment which might make it impossible for the space dwellers people to even visit the planet surface, and at least inconvenient for planet dwellers to be in space).

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