Ole Seehausen talks with
ScienceWatch.com and answers a few questions about
this month's Fast Moving Fronts paper in the field of
Environment/Ecology. The author has also sent along images of
his work.
Article: Speciation through sensory drive in cichlid
fish
Authors: Seehausen, O;Terai, Y;Magalhaes,
IS;Carleton, KL;Mrosso, HDJ;Miyagi, R;van der Sluijs,
I;Schneider, MV;Maan, ME;Tachida, H;Imai, H;Okada, N
Journal: NATURE, 455 (7213): 620-U23 OCT 2 2008
The male breeding color phenotypes, and the frequencies of
alternative alleles at the long wavelength sensitive opsin gene, in
sympatric species and population pairs of Pundamilia.
The hatched line separates the P. pundamilia/P. nyererei complex
from other species pairs. Left column: blue types, right column: red dorsum
and red chest types. From top: representative males of blue and reddish
phenotypes in the variable but predominantly blue Pundamilia
population from Marumbi Island; representative males of blue and reddish
phenotypes in the variable but predominantly blue Pundamilia
population from Luanso Island; representative males of the blue and red
incipient species from Kissenda Island; representative males of the blue
and red incipient species from Python Island; representative males of
P. pundamilia and P. nyererei from Makobe Island;
representative males of P. pundamilia and P. igneopinnis
from Igombe Island; representative males of P. azurea and
P. sp. "red head" (red chest type) from Ruti and Zue Island
respectively. Numbers in the allele frequency pies are the number of
haplotypes sequenced.
FIGURE 2:
FIGURE 2 DESCRIPTION:
Variation in the divergence between blue and red
Pundamilia at 5 different islands in Lake Victoria.
All data for the same island are presented in the same column. Significant
differences between islands are indicated by asterisks (all tests
two-tailed): * = p<0.05, **** = p<0.0001, (*) = p<0.1
A: Depth distributions of male nuptial colour phenotypes.
Blue bars = blue, pale yellow bars = intermediate, orange or red bars = red
(orange if dominated by class 3, red if dominated by class 4). Significance
levels of differences between islands in the divergence between red and
blue are reported as p values of G-tests.
B: Frequencies of functional allele groups at the LWS
opsin gene by island and male colour (left: blue, right: red males).
Numbers report sample sizes of completely sequenced haplotypes. For Marumbi
and Luanso Islands, only the haplotypes of those individuals are included
that could be assigned to "blueish" and "reddish" phenotypes (24 and 54
haplotypes were sequenced from Marumbi and Luanso respectively). Alleles of
the P-group in blue, alleles of the H-group in red, other alleles grey and
yellow.
C: Individuals plotted on first and second axes of a Factorial
Correspondence Analysis of genetic variance calculated from 11 unlinked
microsatellite loci. Colours indicate pooled male nuptial colour classes.
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return to this page).