Population structure and colour variation of the cichlid fishes Labeotropheus fuelleborni Ahl along a recently formed archipelago of rocky habitat patches in southern Lake Malawi

Arnegard, Matthew E.; Markert, Jeffrey A.; Danley, Patrick D.; Stauffer, Jay R.; Ambali, Aggrey; Köcher, Thomas

doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0611

Cited by 112 publications

(144 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Whereas previous non-phylogenetic studies have rarely demonstrated convergence on mainlands, it has been found much more frequently in island communities. Recent phylogenetically based island examples include spiders (Blackledge & Gillespie 2004;Gillespie 2004), lizards (Losos et al 1998) and cichlid fish (for which East African Rift Lakes are the equivalent of islands- Arnegard et al 1999). It is possible that differing analytical methods (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercontinental community convergence of ecology and morphology in desert lizards

2005

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Evolutionary ecologists have long debated the extent to which communities in similar environments but different geographic regions exhibit convergence. On the one hand, if species' adaptations and community structure are determined by environmental features, convergence would be expected. However, if historical contingencies have long-lasting effects convergence would be unlikely. Most studies to date have emphasized the differences between communities in similar environments and little quantitative evidence for convergence exists. The application of comparative phylogenetic methods to ecological studies provides an opportunity to further investigate hypotheses of convergence. We compared the evolutionary patterns of structural ecology and morphology of 42 species of iguanian lizards from deserts of Australia and North America. Using a comparative approach, we found that evolutionary convergence of ecology and morphology occurs both in overall, community-wide patterns and in terms of pairs of highly similar intercontinental pairs of species. This result indicates that in these desert lizards, deterministic adaptive evolution shapes community patterns and overrides the historical contingencies unique to particular lineages.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercontinental community convergence of ecology and morphology in desert lizards

2005

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“…2). Not unexpectedly, therefore, waterfall barriers appear to have played a generally important role in promoting allopatric divergence within the Brienomyrus species flock of Gabon-much like the role that sand and deep water play, albeit on a much finer scale, in the isolation of rock-dwelling cichlid populations in the Lake Malawi species flock (van Oppen et al 1997;Arnegard et al 1999;Rico and Turner 2002).…”

Section: Population Structure Of the Magnostipes Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple Cases of Striking Genetic Similarity Between Alternate Electric Fish Signal Morphs in Sympatry

2005

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Abstract. Striking trait polymorphisms are worthy of study in natural populations because they can often shed light on processes of phenotypic divergence and specialization, adaptive evolution, and (in some cases) the early stages of speciation. We examined patterns of genetic variation within and between populations of mormyrid fishes that are morphologically cryptic in sympatry but produce alternate types of electric organ discharge (EOD). Other species in a large group containing a clade of these morphologically cryptic EOD types produce stereotyped, species-typical EOD waveforms thought to function in mate recognition. First, for six populations from Gabon's Brienomyrus species flock, we confirm that forms of electric fish that exhibit distinctive morphologies and unique EOD waveforms (i.e., good reference species) are reproductively isolated from coexisting congeners. These sympatric species deviate from genetic panmixia across five microsatellite loci. Given this result, we examined three focal pairs of syntopic and morphologically cryptic EOD waveform types that are notable exceptions to the pattern of robust genetic partitioning among unique waveform classes within assemblages. These exceptional pairs constitute a monophyletic group within the Brienomyrus flock known as the magnostipes complex. One member of each pair (type I) produces a head-negative EOD, while the other member (either type II or type III, depending on location) produces a longer duration EOD differing in waveform from type I. We show that signal development in these pairs begins with juveniles of all magnostipes-complex morphs emitting head-positive EODs resembling those of type II adults. Divergence of EOD waveforms occurs with growth such that there are two discrete and fixed signal types in morphologically indistinguishable adults at each of several localities. Strong microsatellite partitioning between allopatric samples of any of these morphologically cryptic signal types suggests that geographically isolated populations are genetically decoupled from one another. By contrast, sympatric morphs appear genetically identical across microsatellite loci in Mouvanga Creek and the Okano River and only very weakly diverged, if at all, in the Ivindo River. Our results for the magnostipes complex fail to detect species boundaries between the focal morphs and are, instead, fully consistent with the existence of relatively stable signal dimorphisms at each of several different localities. No mechanism for the maintenance of this electrical polymorphism is suggested by the known natural history of the magnostipes complex. Despite a lack of evidence for genetic differentiation, the possibility of incipient sympatric speciation between morphs (especially type I and type II within the Ivindo River) merits further testing due to behavioral and neurobiological lines of evidence implying a general role for stereotyped EOD waveforms in species recognition. We discuss alternative hypotheses concerning the origins, stability, and evolutionary significa...

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“…Recent studies using the AFLP method to overcome this problem have provided phylogenetic hypotheses for larger subgroups of the mbuna cichlids (Albertson et al 1999;Allender et al 2003). Population-genetic analyses based on microsatellite markers have also been successfully applied in Lake Malawi mbuna cichlids and it has been shown that deep waters and sandy stretches may act as strong barriers to gene flow (van Oppen et al 1997;Arnegard et al 1999;Markert et al 1999). Sometimes a habitat discontinuity of only about 35 m seems sufficient to isolate two populations (Rico and Turner 2002).…”

Section: Lake Malawimentioning

confidence: 99%

The species flocks of East African cichlid fishes: recent advances in molecular phylogenetics and population genetics

Salzburger

Meyer

2004

Naturwissenschaften

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With more than 3,000 species, the fish family Cichlidae is one of the most species-rich families of vertebrates. Cichlids occur in southern and central America, Africa, Madagascar, and India. The hotspot of their biodiversity is East Africa, where they form adaptive radiations composed of hundreds of endemic species in several lakes of various sizes and ages. The unparalleled species richness of East African cichlids has been something of a conundrum for evolutionary biologists and ecologists, since it has been in doubt whether these hundreds of species arose by allopatric speciation or whether it is necessary to invoke somewhat less traditional models of speciation, such as micro-allopatric, peripatric, or even sympatric speciation or evolution through sexual selection mediated by female choice. Ernst Mayr's analyses of these evolutionary uniquely diverse species assemblages have contributed to a more direct approach to this problem and have led to a deeper understanding of the patterns and processes that caused the formation of these huge groups of species. We review here recent molecular data on population differentiation and phylogenetics, which have helped to unravel, to some extent, the patterns and processes that led to the formation and ecological maintenance of cichlid species flocks. It is becoming apparent that sexually selected traits do play an important role in speciation in micro-allopatric or even sympatric settings. Species richness seems to be roughly correlated with the surface area, but not the age, of the lakes. We observe that the oldest lineages of a species flock of cichlids are often less species-rich and live in the open water or deepwater habitats. While the species flocks of the Lake Malawai and the Lake Victoria areas were shown to be monophyletic, the cichlid assemblage of Lake Tanganyika seems to consist of several independent species flocks. Cichlids emerge as an evolutionary model system in which many fundamental questions in evolution and ecology can be tested successfully, yet for other fish species flocks the relative importance of alternative mechanisms of speciation is likely to differ from that in cichlid fish.

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Population structure and colour variation of the cichlid fishes Labeotropheus fuelleborni Ahl along a recently formed archipelago of rocky habitat patches in southern Lake Malawi

Cited by 112 publications

References 52 publications

Intercontinental community convergence of ecology and morphology in desert lizards

Intercontinental community convergence of ecology and morphology in desert lizards

Multiple Cases of Striking Genetic Similarity Between Alternate Electric Fish Signal Morphs in Sympatry

The species flocks of East African cichlid fishes: recent advances in molecular phylogenetics and population genetics

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