What occurs after fertilization and prevents the maturation of fertile offspring?

After fertilization, post-zygotic barriers come into play, which act to prevent the development of viable or fertile offspring. These mechanisms occur after the zygote has formed and can include various outcomes such as hybrid inviability, where the zygote fails to develop properly, or hybrid sterility, where the resulting hybrid individual is sterile and unable to reproduce, like a mule (the offspring of a horse and a donkey).

These barriers are crucial in the process of speciation, as they help maintain the distinctiveness of different species by ensuring that even if fertilization occurs between different species, the offspring will not be viable or capable of reproducing. This reinforces the genetic integrity of species and contributes to the broader understanding of evolutionary processes.

In contrast, pre-zygotic barriers occur before fertilization and can include mechanisms like temporal isolation or behavioral isolation, which prevent different species from mating in the first place. A population bottleneck relates to a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events, thereby affecting genetic diversity, while natural selection involves the differential survival of individuals based on their traits. These concepts, while related to population dynamics and speciation, do not specifically describe the mechanisms at work after fertilization that prevent the maturation