Colour-assortative mating among populations of Tropheus moorii, a cichlid fish from Lake Tanganyika, East Africa.

ABSTRACT: The species flocks of cichlid fishes in the East African Lakes Tanganyika, Malawi and Victoria are prime examples of adaptive radiation and explosive speciation. Several hundreds of endemic species have evolved in each of the lakes over the past several thousands to a few millions years. Sexual selection via colour-assortative mating has often been proposed as a probable causal factor for initiating and maintaining reproductive isolation. Here, we report the consequences of human-mediated admixis among differentially coloured populations of the endemic cichlid fish Tropheus moorii from several localities that have accidentally been put in sympatry in a small harbour bay in the very south of Lake Tanganyika. We analysed the phenotypes (coloration) and genotypes (mitochondrial control region

SUBMITTER: Salzburger W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1560039 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature