Marine incursion: the freshwater herring of Lake Tanganyika are the product of a marine invasion into west Africa.

ABSTRACT: The spectacular marine-like diversity of the endemic fauna of Lake Tanganyika, the oldest of the African Great Lakes, led early researchers to suggest that the lake must have once been connected to the ocean. Recent geophysical reconstructions clearly indicate that Lake Tanganyika formed by rifting in the African subcontinent and was never directly linked to the sea. Although the Lake has a high proportion of specialized endemics, the absence of close relatives outside Tanganyika has complicated phylogeographic reconstructions of the timing of lake colonization and intralacustrine diversification. The freshwater herring of Lake Tanganyika are members of a large group of pellonuline herring found in western and southern Africa, offering one of the best opportunities to trace the evolutionar

SUBMITTER: Wilson AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2292254 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature