Scientists Discover Fish in Act of Evolution in Africa’s Greatest Lake
In what could be a first in the world, a fish species in the cichlid family has been observed by scientists in the act of splitting into two distinct species in Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake and one of the world’s biggest fresh water bodies.
This may be remarkable because what is causing them to diverge are adaptations to their vision as animals and plants try to cope with increased pollution and the effects of climate change. The change is also happening without geographical isolation, which was thought to be a precursor for evolution.
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The Pundamilia nyererei is a haplochromine type cichlid native to areas in the Mwanza Gulf region of Lake Victoria. This region consists of many islands where each island region has its own color variant of the fish.
In a report published in the journal Nature, researchers from Tokyo’s Institute of Technology and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology have observed the cichlid evolve into a new species better adapted in sighting its prey and predator.
But the scientists have also tabled evidence indicating that it is not pollution and over-fishing alone that are responsible for the disappearance of some fish species in Lake Victoria and the evolving of others like the cichlid into new species.
The report summarizes that new species may be born because of vision differences and what fish see at least in one African lake could be the driving force that causes them to evolve into new species.
This may explain the very rapid loss of pundamilia in Lake Victoria over the past 30 years. The study says the eye adaptations have also affected mating patterns.
Researchers looked at two species, conspicuous by their red or blue colours. They determined through lab experiments that certain genetic mutations helped some fish adapt their vision at deeper levels to see the colour red and others in shallower water to recognise shades of blue.
The researchers showed that the eyes have adapted to this difference so that fish that live in deeper water have a pigment in their eyes that is more sensitive to red light, while shallow-water fish were sensitive to blue.
Generally, the evolutionary process of speciation (the formation of new species) occurs when one species is split by a physical distance or barrier, allowing each group to develop different traits. The observations of Lake Victoria’s cichlids provide evidence of an unusual form of evolution known as sympatric speciation, which occurs without the physical separation of a population group.
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Image credit: Erica Marshall at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
[...] Posted by Kernel Sanders Source [ EcoWorld | Scientists Discover Fish in Act of Evolution in Africa
I don’t believe in Evolution but whether you belive in Evolution or Biblical truths, either way everyone who is breathing and alive today has no proof with their own eyes that Evolution exists or Jesus, you still have to believe in something you have not seen, thats called Faith. So in essence your faith is in Man who “thinks” they know how we got here, a speculation. Scientist talk about millions & billions of years ago, and how some molecules (millions of microns smaller than a speck of dust) got together and determined whether we were or animals were going to have a penis or vagina and build the whole reprodutive system. Forget about how the animal or any species evolutionized how the heck did they get here in the first place? No one knows, but you have the beautiful human right to believe in something and anything you have not seen. Their will always be believer and non-believers and we should just learn to live with it because it will always be a never ending discussion.
I suppose the observed mutation is one in the possible range of mutations of cichlid. Like mildew resistance in plants.
[...] that I found very interesting and felt needed to be shared. You can also find the article at ecoworld. Several days ago scientist were able to capture for the first time an animal in the process of an [...]
Yay for evolution maybe we can get it back in schools
The confusion arises from semantics. It seems the general public’s understanding of the word “species” is different than how it is typically used in evolutionary biology. Separate species sometimes are not easily identified, but a genral rule of thumb is use mating tendencies — in this case, 2 populations appear to not interbreed and as a result are beginning to differientiate into separate species. Another interesting take on this concept is that of “ring species,” where populations next to each other interbreed, but where populations on the extreme geographical ranges would never mate. Are they separate species? What about the intermediate populations, are they unique and separate? This is why it’s not so easy to clearly define what is meant by “species.”
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So, you think this is evolution? Funny. That fish is still a fish, not a reptile or anything else. Among humans, there are much bigger differences than eye color, yet we are all humans still.
This is simply adaption. Anybody who actually paid attention in high school biology knows that.