Replicated evolution of trophic specializations in an endemic cichlid fish lineage from Lake Tanganyika.

ABSTRACT: The current phylogenetic hypothesis for the endemic Lake Tanganyika cichlid fishes of the tribe Eretmodini is based solely on morphology and suggests that more complex trophic morphologies derived only once from a less specialized ancestral condition. A molecular phylogeny of eretmodine cichlids based on partial mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b and control-region sequences was used to reconstruct the evolutionary sequence of trophic adaptations and to test alternative models of morphological divergence. The six mitochondrial lineages found disagree with the current taxonomy and the morphology-based phylogeny. Mitochondrial lineages with similar trophic morphologies are not grouped monophyletically but are typically more closely related to lineages with different trophic phenotypes currently

SUBMITTER: Ruber L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC17871 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature