Skeletal deformities cause severe economic losses in the aquaculture industry due to the reduced market value of the affected fish. The banded cichlid (Heros severus) is an ornamental cichlid native to the Amazon region. In the summer 2011 during clinical investigation on 750 severum of 5 ornamental fish farms in Karaj and Tehran, Iran, a two-year-old severum having deformity in dorsal and anal...

This study investigated the effects of mate switching on the reproductive performance of the severum cichlid, Herosseverus, by advancing the egg and larval production in hatcheries. Two reproductive tactic treatments of “monogamous pair” and “mate switching” were used for evaluating 4 reproductive traits of egg production, hatching rate, spawning intervals, and starvation tolerance of the larva...

This study investigated the effects of mate switching on the reproductive performance of the severum cichlid, Herosseverus, by advancing the egg and larval production in hatcheries. Two reproductive tactic treatments of “monogamous pair” and “mate switching” were used for evaluating 4 reproductive traits of egg production, hatching rate, spawning intervals, and starvation tolerance of the larva...

Timing divergence events allow us to infer the conditions under which biodiversity has evolved and gain important insights into the mechanisms driving evolution. Cichlid fishes are a model system for studying speciation and adaptive radiation, yet, we have lacked reliable timescales for their evolution. Phylogenetic reconstructions are consistent with cichlid origins prior to Gondwanan landmass...

Cichlid fishes are a key model system in the study of adaptive radiation, speciation and evolutionary developmental biology. More than 1600 cichlid species inhabit freshwater and marginal marine environments across several southern landmasses. This distributional pattern, combined with parallels between cichlid phylogeny and sequences of Mesozoic continental rifting, has led to the widely accep...

The mechanisms underlying natural phenotypic diversity are key to understanding evolution and speciation. Cichlid fishes are among the most speciose vertebrates and an ideal model for identifying genes controlling species differences. Cichlids have diverse visual sensitivities that result from species expressing subsets of seven cichlid cone opsin genes. We previously identified a quantitative ...

Cichlid fish inhabit a diverse range of environments that vary in the spectral content of light available for vision. These differences should result in adaptive selective pressure on the genes involved in visual sensitivity, the opsin genes. This study examines the evidence for differential adaptive molecular evolution in East African cichlid opsin genes due to gross differences in environment...

Cichlid fishes in Lake Victoria are model organisms for studying rapid radiation and speciation. On the way to examine the molecular basis of how these cichlid fishes achieved such a remarkable morphological diversification, we constructed a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library derived from a cichlid species, Haplochromis chilotes, from Lake Victoria. The library includes 157,056 clone...

With an estimated 3000 species, distributed from Central and South America, across Africa to Madagascar, the Middle East, and southern India, cichlid fishes (Cichlidae) represent the most species-rich family of vertebrates. In total they account for about 10% of extant teleost diversity. Throughout their distributional range, cichlids have repeatedly demonstrated their capacity for undergoing a...