Aggressive mimicry is an adaptive tactic of parasitic or predatory species that closely resemble inoffensive models in order to increase fitness via predatory gains. Although similarity of distantly related species is often intuitively implicated with mimicry, the exact mechanisms and evolutionary causes remain elusive in many cases. Here, we report a complex aggressive mimicry strategy in Plec...

Owing to its high degree of complexity and plasticity, the cichlid pharyngeal jaw apparatus has often been described as a key evolutionary innovation. The majority of studies investigating pharyngeal muscle behavior and function have done so in the context of feeding. Analysis of enzyme activities (citrate synthase, 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase and L-lactate dehydrogenase) of pharyngeal musc...

An agent-based simulation has been built to model speciation in cichlid fishes in the Great Lakes of Africa. A real natural system has been chosen as the target of simulation, rather than a generalised system. This focusses research towards open problems in cichlid biology, and provides a library of field research to drive the design and parametrisation of the simulation. Visualisations of the ...

Cichlid fishes are extremely species rich and formed species flocks within recordbreaking short time spans. We constructed a medium density genetic linkage map of Astatotilapia burtoni from the Lake Tanganyika region based on 208 microsatellite markers, 148 of which were newly developed. Sequences originated largely from a partial genomic library, but some EST and BAC clones were also used. The...

We study further CCZ-equivalence of (n,m)-functions. We prove that for Boolean functions (that is, for m = 1), CCZ-equivalence coincides with EA-equivalence. On the contrary, we show that for (n,m)functions, CCZ-equivalence is strictly more general than EAequivalence when n ≥ 5 and m is greater or equal to the smallest positive divisor of n different from 1. Our result on Boolean functions allo...

PRINCIPALS Over a million people worldwide die each year from road traffic injuries and more than 10 million sustain permanent disabilities. Many of these victims are pedestrians. The present retrospective study analyzes the severity and mortality of injuries suffered by adult pedestrians, depending on whether they used a zebra crosswalk. METHODS Our retrospective data analysis covered adult ...

The influence of 3-methylcholanthrene to zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) larvae was studied. The artificial spawning of zebra mussels was used for obtaining larvae. Two different concentrations of 3-methylcholanthrene were used. The chromosome analysis showed a significant increase in chromosome aberrations (CA) at the higher concentration of the compound. The resistance of zebra mussel lar...

Lake Victoria harbors a unique species-rich flock of more than 500 endemic haplochromine cichlid fishes. The origin, age, and mechanism of diversification of this extraordinary radiation are still debated. Geological evidence suggests that the lake dried out completely about 14,700 years ago. On the basis of phylogenetic analyses of almost 300 DNA sequences of the mitochondrial control region o...

Hundreds of species of cichlid fishes have evolved in the Great Lakes of Africa. These colorful fishes are known for their ecological diversity. Here, we discuss the diversity of their visual systems. Cichlids have seven unique cone opsin genes, which produce visual pigments sensitive from the ultraviolet to the red end of the spectrum. Different species typically express three visual pigments ...

The dramatic variation of cichlid fish colour pattern is thought to function in mate choice, evolve by sexual selection, and contribute to explosive speciation. Here, we combine linkage mapping and population genetic analyses to identify a single region of the cichlid genome responsible for the orange blotch (OB) colour phenotype. In each analysis, OB is tightly linked to the c-ski1 gene. Addit...