Reticulate Relationship

a type of intraspecific genealogical relationship that is characteristic only of groups of individuals united by crossbreeding and the production of fertile offspring. Each individual is usually descended from two parental types, four grandparental types, eight great-grandpa-rental types, and so on. As a result, all individuals belonging to one species or population have common ancestors in preceding generations and their relationship to each other is netlike. With the development of any kind of biological isolation, a reticulate relationship is disrupted and yields to a hierarchical system of taxons, which is usually graphically expressed in the form of a genealogical tree.