Morphology and ecology during the course of teleost adaptive radiations

Abstract

The work presented in my doctoral thesis focuses on different aspects of adaptive radiations in teleost fish and evolves around different systems, namely Lake Tanganyikan and Central American cichlids and Antarctic notothenioids. I assessed relationships between morphological and physiological characters and the ecology of a diverse sample of teleost fish species and how those are related to the environment a species lives in (i.e. phenotype-environment correlations) (chapters 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.4). In this context I also explored the occurrence of convergence within (chapters 1.2, 1.5) and between systems (chapter 1.1). Furthermore, I studied the process of morphological and ecological disparity throughout the course of teleost adaptive radiations (chapters 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.2, 2.3), thereby testing for evidence for ‘early bursts’ in trait evolution and macro-habitat partition and the generality of the hypothesis that evolution should follow a fixed ordering of temporally discrete stages in adaptive radiations.