Item Details

Title: Genetic Status of Selected Fish Taxa In Relation to Conservation of Genetic and Species Diversity in the Victoria and Kyoga Lake BasinsĀ·

Date Published: 2000
Author/s: Ogutu-Ohwayo, R. and Ndawula L.
Data publication:
Funding Agency :
Copyright/patents/trade marks:
Journal Publisher:
Affiliation: National Agricultural Research Organisation,
Fisheries Resources Research Institute,
P. O. Box 343, Jinja, Uganda
Keywords:

Abstract:

Cichlids are known for their explosive radiation especially in the African Great Lakes marked with a high level of lake endemism. These fishes have been characterized mainly along trophic and habitat differences, by variation in morphological structures such as teeth and jaws and by differences in body shape and coloration. Cichlids are important as a microcosm of macroevolution. The explosive radiation, young evolutionary scale, and the isolation of groups characterized with high levels of endemism and presence of living fossils makes the group important for evolutionary and genetic studies. Lake Victoria region cichlids which are isolated and relatively more recent in evolution were the last to be appreciated in their diversity. Recently Ole Seehausen has found scores of rock fishes in Lake Victoria which were up to then thought to be absent from the Lake and only known to occur in Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika.