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Subtle population structure and male-biased dispersal in two Copadichromis species (Teleostei, Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi, East Africa

  • SPECIATION IN ANCIENT LAKES
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Abstract

Various attributes of cichlid biology have been suggested to drive their propensity for rapid speciation, including population substructuring over short geographic distances. While this seems especially true for the rock-dwelling Mbuna species from Lake Malawi, the present study shows that geographic or habitat barriers are not sufficient to explain population substructuring in the less substrate-bound Utaka (non-Mbuna) species. We found similar levels of subtle population structure in the rock-dwelling Copadichromis quadrimaculatus and in the sand-dwelling C. sp. ‘virginalis kajose’ (F ST < 0.01 in both species) without a discernable geographical pattern. We suggest that aspects of the reproductive strategy, by which seasonal aggregation alternates with more free-ranging stages, may facilitate the establishment of small population differences in Utaka. This hypothesis agrees with our finding that in these cichlids dispersal appears to be male biased.

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Acknowledgements

The field work was supported by the Interdisciplinary Research Centre of the KULeuven Campus Kortrijk, a grant from the King Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation to DA and grants from the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO) and the ‘Stichting tot bevordering van het wetenschappelijk onderzoek in Afrika’ to JS. G.E. Maes is a post-doctoral fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). We wish to thank the Malawi Fisheries Department, and especially Sam Mapila and Orton Kachinjika, for permission to conduct fieldwork in Malawi, the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British High Commission in Malawi, and especially George Turner (Bangor University, UK), for putting a 4 × 4 vehicle at our disposal for the sampling trip. We thank the late Davis Mandere for his valuable assistance in the field, the Fisheries Research Unit in Monkey Bay and Nkhata Bay for their assistance and the late Stuart Grant for his hospitality and for providing fish samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Research Centre, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Campus Kortrijk, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500, Kortrijk, Belgium

    Dieter Anseeuw & Paul Busselen

  2. Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Ch. de Bériotstraat 32, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Gregory E. Maes

  3. Laboratory for Ecophysiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Dries Knapen

  4. Zoology Department, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080, Tervuren, Belgium

    Jos Snoeks

  5. Laboratory of Animal Diversity and Systematics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Ch. de Bériotstraat 32, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Jos Snoeks

  6. Vertebrate Department, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

    Erik Verheyen

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  1. Dieter Anseeuw
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  2. Gregory E. Maes
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  4. Dries Knapen
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  5. Jos Snoeks
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Correspondence to Dieter Anseeuw.

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Guest editors: T. Wilke, R. Väinölä & F. Riedel

Patterns and Processes of Speciation in Ancient Lakes: Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on Speciation in Ancient Lakes, Berlin, Germany, September 4–8, 2006

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Anseeuw, D., Maes, G.E., Busselen, P. et al. Subtle population structure and male-biased dispersal in two Copadichromis species (Teleostei, Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi, East Africa. Hydrobiologia 615, 69–79 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-008-9565-z

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