THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE MALAWI
The Continent of Africa has always been hailed by Archaeologists and Anthropologists alike, as the birthplace of humanity. It was its’ vast natural resources, and wide varieties of fauna and flora that lured European explorers to its shores beginning in the early 17th Century.
During the late 1600’s, and early 1700’s, foreign [...]
Lake Malawi is the ninth largest lake in the world. It lies in Africa’s rift valley south of two other African great lakes, Victoria and Tangynika. Malawi is estimated to be about two million years old.
No major river systems flow into Lake Malawi, and there is only a single outlet at [...]
This study addressed within-population dispersal patterns among the species-rich Lake Malawi cichlids, specifically among the rock-dwelling mbuna group. Relatedness values were calculated for 160 individuals belonging to two species from known locations in the field by screening six highly polymorphic microsatellite loci. The results from both species indicate that spatially adjacent females have higher average [...]
Lake Malawi in East Africa harbours 500-1,000 endemic species of cichlid fishes, all presumably derived by adaptive radiation from a single founding population within the past two million years. The species of this ‘flock’ differ strikingly in their ecology and behaviour, moderately in their external morphology and very little in their molecular characteristics.
Here we [...]
