Erik Verheyen

TL;DR: In this paper, a phylogenetic analysis of almost 300 DNA sequences of the mitochondrial control region of East African cichlids was performed and it was shown that the Lake Victoria Cichlid flock is derived from the geologically older Lake Kivu and that the two seeding lineages may have already been lake-adapted when they colonized Lake Victoria.

TL;DR: The most extensive phylogenetic and phylogeographic analysis so far that includes about 100 species and is based on about 2,000 bp of the mitochondrial DNA concludes that Lake Tanganyika is the geographic and genetic cradle of all haplochromine lineages.

TL;DR: These findings contradict the current hypothesis that ancestral riverine haplochromines colonized Lake Tanganyika to give rise to at least part of its spectacular endemic cichlid species assemblage and instead contradict the early phases of the Tanganyikan radiation, which affected Central and East African rivers and lakes.

TL;DR: The data suggest that the same climatic phenomenon synchronized the onset of genetic divergence of lineages in all three species flocks, such that their most recent evolutionary history seems to be linked to the same external modulators of adaptive radiation.

TL;DR: The authors' results indicate multiple independent origins of similar trophic specializations in these cichlids, and a pattern of repeated divergent morphological evolution becomes apparent when the phylogeography of the mitochondrial haplotypes is analyzed in the context of the geological and paleoclimatological history of Lake Tanganyika.