Hello guest! Are you an Apistogramma enthusiast? If so we invite you to join our community and see what it has to offer. Our site is specifically designed for you and it's a great place for Apisto enthusiasts to meet online. Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your fish and tanks and have a great time with other Apisto enthusiasts. Sign up today!
Anybody care to summarize what this article means for those of us who may not be up-to-date on "stratigraphically consistent outgroup lineages" or “relaxed molecular-clock DNA analysis” or “Gondwanan vicariance scenario” ... etc. For example, does it mean that S. Amer and Africa split apart before the first freshwater cichlids evolved, and that new world and old world cichlids must have evolved independently from marine ancestors something like Etroplus?
Simply put, South America and Africa separated tens of millions of years before the appearance of the first cichlids, based on dating of cichlid DNA. The 'vicariance' (problem) is how did a freshwater family like cichlids cross a 1000 km wide ocean so that representatives are now found on both sides? The authors make some suggestions.