Among vertebrates, cichlid fishes are the paradigmatic example of adaptive radiation and ecological specialization. In turn, molecular genetic studies of cichlids have focused primarily on more recently diverged groups. Here, we present an evolutionary hypothesis of the major lineages of cichlid fishes based on DNA sequence data from two nuclear loci. One marker, Tmo-4C4, is a single-copy locus...

Comparative studies have revealed that vasopressin-oxytocin pathways are associated with both pair bonding and grouping behavior. However, the relationship between pair bonding and grouping behavior remains unclear. In this study, our aim was to identify whether two species that differ in grouping behavior display a corresponding difference in their pair bonds, and in the underlying vasopressin...

Microsatellites, or short sequence repeats, abound in most organisms and have proven useful for a range of genetic and genomic studies. Once primers have been created, they can be applied to populations or taxa that have diverged from the source taxon with varying degrees of success. We use PCR amplification, in a 96 well format, to determine the presence and absence of 46 microsatellite loci i...