ArticleEvoDevo2016
Developmental basis of phenotypic integration in two Lake Malawi cichlids.
Article in EvoDevo, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ancestral splice variation is a key substrate for rapid diversification in African cichlids.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Developmental and Functional Interactions Structure Patterns of Variational Modularity in the Lunar Wrasse Skull.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Zebrafish crocc2 mutants exhibit divergent craniofacial shape, misregulated variability, and aberrant cartilage morphogenesis.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2023Article
- Cellular basis of differential endochondral growth in Lake Malawi cichlids.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2022Article
- Gene coexpression networks reveal molecular interactions underlying cichlid jaw modularity.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Differences in developmental potential predict the contrasting patterns of dental diversification in characiform and cypriniform fishes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Trophic divergence of Lake Kivu cichlid fishes along a pelagic versus littoral habitat axis.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Ambient temperature as a factor contributing to the developmental divergence in sympatric salmonids.PloS one · 2021Article
- Endochondral growth zone pattern and activity in the zebrafish pharyngeal skeleton.Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists · 2021Article
- Modeling craniofacial development reveals spatiotemporal constraints on robust patterning of the mandibular arch.PLoS computational biology · 2018Article
- Article
- The Role of Alternative Splicing and Differential Gene Expression in Cichlid Adaptive Radiation.Genome biology and evolution · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundCichlid fishes from the Rift Lakes of East Africa have undergone the most spectacular adaptive radiations in vertebrate history. Eco-morphological adaptations in lakes Victoria, Malawi and Tanganyika have resulted in a vast array of skull shapes and sizes, yet primary axes of morphological variation are conserved in all three radiations, prominently including the size of the preorbital region of the skull. This conserved pattern suggests that development may constrain the trajectories of cichlid head morphological evolution.
resultsHere, we (1) present a comparative analysis of adult head morphology in two sand-dweller cichlids from Lake Malawi with preorbital size differences representative of the main axis of variation among the three lakes and (2) analyze the ontogeny of shape and size differences by focusing on known developmental modules throughout the head. We find that (1) developmental differences between the two species correlate with known developmental modules; (2) differences in embryonic cartilage development result in phenotypically integrated changes among all bones derived from a single cartilage, while differences in dermal bone development tend to influence isolated regions within a bone; and lastly (3) species-specific morphologies appear in the embryo as subtle differences, which become progressively amplified throughout ontogeny. We propose that this amplification takes place at skeletal growth zones, the locations and shapes of which are patterned during embryogenesis.
conclusionsThis study is the most anatomically comprehensive analysis of the developmental differences underlying cichlid skull evolution in the Rift Lakes of East Africa. The scale of our analysis reveals previously unnoticed correlations between developmental modules and patterns of phenotypic integration. We propose that the primary axes of morphological variation among East African cichlid adaptive radiations are constrained by the hierarchical modularity of the teleost head skeleton.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.