General interest article

[apistodave]

This is just an interesting PDf

 

[apistodave]

description

 

[Mike Wise]

Thanks David. I find the origins of cichlids and rifting of Gondwanaland paper very interesting.

 

[apistodave]

I did too Mike, maybe this is why we are seeing so much evolution with cichlididae

 

[gerald]

Anybody care to summarize what this article means for those of us who may not be up-to-date on "stratigraphically consistent outgroup lineages" or “relaxed molecular-clock DNA analysis” or “Gondwanan vicariance scenario” ... etc. For example, does it mean that S. Amer and Africa split apart before the first freshwater cichlids evolved, and that new world and old world cichlids must have evolved independently from marine ancestors something like Etroplus?

 

[Mike Wise]

Simply put, South America and Africa separated tens of millions of years before the appearance of the first cichlids, based on dating of cichlid DNA. The 'vicariance' (problem) is how did a freshwater family like cichlids cross a 1000 km wide ocean so that representatives are now found on both sides? The authors make some suggestions.