The Cichlid Fishes: Nature's Grand Experiment In Evolution (original) (raw)

14 Cichlid Fish Diversity and Speciation

2006

Cichlids are one of the most species rich families of vertebrates, with conservative estimates citing more than 2,000 extant species. Although native to tropical areas of the world, with the exception of Australia, some 70-80% of cichlids are found in Africa, with the greatest diversity found in the Great Lakes (lakes Victoria, Tanzania and Malawi). Their highly integrated pharyngeal jaw apparatus permits cichlids to transport and process food, thus enabling the oral jaws to develop specialisations for acquiring a variety of food items. This distinct feature has allowed cichlids to achieve great trophic diversity, which in turn has lead to great species diversity. The high species diversity of this vertebrate family is not accompanied by an appropriately high genetic diversity. The combination

Cichlid Fish Diversity and Speciation

Systematics Association Special Volumes, 2006

... Miiller25 was the first to group the above families together, and morphological data support the view that Labroidei has phyletic integrity24 based on the following synapomorphies: bladelikekeel on the lower pharyngeal bone and the change in insertion of at least part of the ...

Hybridizationand Speciation among Cichlids: The Case of 'Wesafu', an Ecotype Cichlid

IOSR Journals , 2019

Fishes of the family cichlidae are known for spectacular adaptive radiation and therefore serve as a model for evolutionary and ecological studies. They are highly speciated due to hybridization that frequently occur in the wild. The existence of an ecotype cichlid, 'wesafu' in Epe lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria appears to be the result of such hybridization. This paper reviews the profile of wesafu and compare the species with other cichlids, evaluate the probable causes of speciation which includes diversity in feeding morphology,mate choice, adaptation to changes in habitat arising from water level dynamics , eco-phenotypic variation,restricted migration to predation and introgressive hybridization. The implication of such speciation and hybridization were also highlighted.