Abstract
An assemblage of seven gymnotiform fishes in Venezuela was compared with an assemblage of six mormyriform fishes in Zambia to test the assumption of convergent evolution in the two groups of very distantly related, weakly electric, noctournal fishes. Both assemblages occur in strongly seasonal floodplain habitats, but the upper Zambezi floodplain in Zambia covers a much larger area. The two assemblages had broad diet overlap but relatively narrow overlap of morphological attributes associated with feeding. The gymnotiform assemblage had greater morphological variation, but mormyriforms had more dietary variation. There was ample evidence of evolutionary convergence based on both morphology and diet, and this was despite the fact that species pairwise morphological similarity and dietary similarity were uncorrelated in this dataset. For the most part, the two groups have diversified in a convergent fashion within the confines of their broader niche as nocturnal invertebrate feeders. Both assemblages contain midwater planktivores, microphagous vegetation-dwellers, macrophagous benthic foragers, and long-snouted benthic probers. The gymnotiform assemblage has one piscivore, a niche not represented in the upper Zambezi mormyriform assemblage, but present in the form of Mormyrops deliciousus in the lower Zambezi and many other regions of Africa.
Similar content being viewed by others
References cited
Alves-Gomes, J.A., G. Ortí, M. Haygood, W. Heiligenberg & A. Meyer. 1995. Phylogenetic analysis of the South American electric fishes (order Gymnotiformes) and the evolution of their electrogenic system: a synthesis based on morphology, electrophysiology, and mitochondrial sequence data. Mol. Biol. Evol. 12: 298–318.
Balon, E.K. 1974. Fish production of the drainage area and the influence of ecosystem changes on fish distribution. pp. 459–497. In: E.K. Balon & A.G. Coche (ed.) Lake Kariba: A Man-Made Tropical Ecosystem in Central Africa, Monographiae Biologicae 24, Dr W. Junk Publishers, The Hague.
Blake, B.F. 1977. Food and feeding of the mormyrid fishes of Lake Kainji, Nigeria, with special reference to seasonal variation and interspecific differences. J. Fish Biol. 11: 315–328.
Corbet, P.S. 1961. The food of non-cichlid fishes in the Lake Victoria basin, with remarks on their evolution and adaptation to lacustrine conditions. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 136: 1–101.
Daget, J., J.-P. Gosse & D.F.E. Van Den Audenaerde (ed.). 1984. CLOFFA 1. Check-list of the freshwater fishes of Africa. Musee Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren & ORSTOM, Paris. 410 pp.
Fink, S.V. & W.L. Fink. 1981. Interrelationships of the ostariophysan fishes (Teleostei). Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 72: 297–353.
Heiligenburg, W. & J. Bastian. 1984. The electric sense of weakly electric fish. Ann. Rev. Physiol. 46: 561–583.
Hopkins, C.D. & A.H. Bass. 1981. Temporal coding of species recognition signals in an electric fish. Science 212: 85–87.
Kirschbaum, F. 1984. Reproduction of weakly electric teleosts: just another example of convergent development? Env. Biol. Fish. 10: 3–14.
Lissman, H.W. 1963. Electric location by fishes. Scientific American 208: 50–59.
Lowe-McConnell, R.H. 1975. Fish communities in tropical freshwaters: their distribution, ecology, and evolution. Longman Press, London. 337 pp.
Lundberg, J.G. 1993. African-American freshwater fish clades and continental drift: problems with a paradigm. pp. 157–199. In: P. Goldblatt (ed.) The Biotic Relationships Between Africa and South America, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Mago-Leccia, F. 1994. Electric fishes of the continental waters of America. Fundacion para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Fisicas, Matematicas y Naturales, Caracas. 225 pp.
Marrero, C. 1987. Notas preliminares acerca de la historia natural de los peces del bajo llano. I. Comparación de los hábitos alimentarios de tres especies de Gymnotiformes del Río Apure (Edo. Apure) Venezuela. Rev. Hidrobiol. Trop. 20: 57–63.
Marrero, C. & D.C. Taphorn. 1991. Notas sobre la historia natural y la distribución de los peces Gymnotiformes en la cuenca del Río Apure y otros rios de la Orinoquia. Biollania 8: 123–142.
Marrero, C. & K.O. Winemiller. 1993. Tube-snouted gymnotiform and mormyriform fishes: convergence of a specialized foraging mode in teleosts. Env. Biol. Fish. 38: 299–309.
Petr, T. 1968. Distribution, abundance and food of commercial fish in the Black Volta and the Volta man-made lake in Ghana during its first period of filling (1964–1966). I. Mormyridae. Hydrobiol. 32: 417–448.
Roberts, T.R. 1972. Ecology of fishes in the Amazon and Congo basins. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 143: 117–147.
Van Der Bank, F.H. & B. Kramer. 1996. Phylogenetic relationships between eight African species of mormyriform fish (Teleostei, Osteichthyes): resolution of a cryptic species, and reinstatement of Cyphomyrus Myers, 1960. Biochem. Syst. Evol. (in press).
Winemiller, K.O. 1989. Ontogenetic diet shifts and resource partitioning among piscivorous fishes in the Venezuelan llanos. Env. Biol. Fish. 26: 177–199.
Winemiller, K.O. 1990. Spatial and temporal variation in tropical fish trophic networks. Ecol. Monogr. 60: 331–367.
Winemiller, K.O. 1991a. Comparative ecology of Serranochromis species (Teleostei: Cichlidae) in the Upper Zambezi River. J. Fish Biol. 39: 617–639.
Winemiller, K.O. 1991b. Ecomorphological diversification of freshwater fish assemblages from five biotic regions. Ecol. Monogr. 61: 343–365.
Winemiller, K.O. 1996. Dynamic diversity in fish assemblages of tropical rivers. pp. 99–121. In: M.L. Cody & J.A. Smallwood (ed.) Long-Term Studies of Vertebrate Communities, Academic Press, Orlando.
Winemiller, K.O., L.C. Kelso-Winemiller & A.L. Brenkert. 1995. Ecomorphological diversification and convergence in fluvial cichlid fishes. Env. Biol. Fish. 44: 235–261.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Winemiller, K.O., Adite, A. Convergent evolution of weakly electric fishes from floodplain habitats in Africa and South America. Environmental Biology of Fishes 49, 175–186 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007376826609
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007376826609