Biospeleology, the study of organisms that live in caves, has a tremendous potential to inform many aspects of modern biology; yet this area of knowledge remains largely anchored in neo-Lamarckian views of the natural world in both its approaches and jargon. Written for graduate students and academic researchers, this book provides a critical examination of current knowledge and ideas on cave biology, with emphasis on evolution, ecology, and conservation. Aldemaro Romero provides a historical analysis of ideas that have influenced biospeleology, discusses evolutionary phenomena in caves, from cave colonization to phenotypic and genotypic changes, and integrates concepts and knowledge from diverse biological viewpoints. He challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the biology of caves, and highlights urgent questions that should be addressed in order to get a better and more complete understanding of caves as ecosystems.

The evolution of hypogean fauna in general and hypogean fishes in particular has been controversial. Explanations regarding the reduction or loss of phenotypic characters such as eyes and pigmentation range from neo-Lamarckism to neutral mutations, with 'regressive evolution' being a catch-all characterization for such processes. The assumptions required for special evolutionary mechanisms underlying the evolution of cave dwellers have been based on generalizations about the animals and their environments drawn from relatively few observations. The evidence offered for notions such as pre-adaptation of colonizing fauna and the purported impoverished nutrients in all caves is examined and it appears that the generalizations cannot be supported. Some major accomplishments in field and laboratory studies of hypogean fishes are summarized, including work highlighting developmental phenotypic plasticity. At the end, it is argued that evolution of hypogean fauna can be explained by well-known mechanisms within the current context of evolutionary biology. # 2005 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles

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