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Reticulate evolution

Evolution that is not a purely branching tree, but one in which lineages that have split rejoin - forming a net rather than a tree. It happens through horizontal gene transfer (genes jumping between organisms outside reproduction), through hybridization, and through endosymbiosis. The name comes from the Latin "reticulum" - a little net. Where it operates, the tidy tree diagram is a simplification of something genuinely web-shaped. Reticulation complicates the tree; it does not abolish it.