BIOLOGY 1M03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Ecotype, Insular Biogeography, Cichlid
15 May 2017
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Document Summary
Cichlids are a family teleost fishes that include approximately 3000 species about 10% of extant teleost diversity. Great lakes of tanganyika malawi and victoria have around 250-800 species in each lake. Cichlid dishes have a functionally decoupled set of jaws- oral and pharyngeal. Frees up jaws to independently specialize in food collection and processing. The fish have a huge number of species per lake. Collection and processing of food makes it easier due to the two jaws. Example of a morphological adaption that allows to exploit opportunities. The evolution of many other key innovations allow ancestors to rapidly diversify. Live in new areas exploit new food sources and move in new ways. One trigger of adaptive radiations is ecological opportunity meaning the availability of new types of resources. Larger locations have more species and diversity. These ecotypes evolved independently and repeatedly on the large islands of the caribbean.
