Evolution in fast forward: haplochromine fishes of the Lake Victoria region
نویسندگان
چکیده
The explosive speciation and adaptive radiation of haplochromine cichlid fishes in Lake Victoria is umivalled among vertebrates. It holds answers to many intriguing questions about the origins and maintenance of biological diversity. Unfortunately, Lake Victoria is also a case-study in anthropogenic mass extinction. Over 50 per cent of its endemic fishes disappeared between 1980 and 1986. Hundreds of species abruptly became extinct or vanished, disappearing an order of magnitude faster than they could be described. This article examines the dynamics that underlie this fauna’s extraordinary volatility, and hence points the way towards its conservation.
منابع مشابه
Pleistocene desiccation in East Africa bottlenecked but did not extirpate the adaptive radiation of Lake Victoria haplochromine cichlid fishes.
The Great Lakes region of East Africa, including Lake Victoria, is the center of diversity of the mega-diverse cichlid fishes (Perciformes: Teleostei). Paleolimnological evidence indicates dramatic desiccation of this lake ca. 18,000-15,000 years ago. Consequently, the hundreds of extant endemic haplochromine species in the lake must have either evolved since then or refugia must have existed, ...
متن کاملBack to Tanganyika: a case of recent trans-species-flock dispersal in East African haplochromine cichlid fishes
The species flocks of cichlid fishes in the East African Great Lakes are the largest vertebrate adaptive radiations in the world and illustrious textbook examples of convergent evolution between independent species assemblages. Although recent studies suggest some degrees of genetic exchange between riverine taxa and the lake faunas, not a single cichlid species is known from Lakes Tanganyika, ...
متن کاملThe effect of selection on a long wavelength-sensitive (LWS) opsin gene of Lake Victoria cichlid fishes.
In East African Lake Victoria >200 endemic species of haplochromine fishes have been described on the basis of morphological and behavioral differences. Yet molecular analysis has failed to reveal any species-specific differences among these fishes in either mitochondrial or nuclear genes. Although the genes could be shown to vary, the variations represent trans-species polymorphisms not yet as...
متن کاملThe Integrated Genomic Architecture and Evolution of Dental Divergence in East African Cichlid Fishes (Haplochromis chilotes x H. nyererei)
The independent evolution of the two toothed jaws of cichlid fishes is thought to have promoted their unparalleled ecological divergence and species richness. However, dental divergence in cichlids could exhibit substantial genetic covariance and this could dictate how traits like tooth numbers evolve in different African Lakes and on their two jaws. To test this hypothesis, we used a hybrid ma...
متن کاملGene flow between species of Lake Victoria haplochromine fishes.
The haplochromine cichlid fishes of Lake Victoria (LV), East Africa, are a textbook example of adaptive radiation-a rapid divergence of multiple morphologically distinguishable forms from a few founding lineages. The forms are generally believed to constitute a "flock" of several hundred reproductively isolated species in a dozen or so genera. This belief has, until now, not been subjected to a...
متن کامل