apisto phylogeny/ongoing research of the same..

["S. L." <sarienefish@yahoo.com>]

Dear apistophiles, 

I'm a student of ecology and have been studying extensively evolutionary concepts, etc, the past three or so years.  Having caught the "aquarist sickness"  back when I was 8 or 9 I'm naturally interested in speciation processes (and indirectly phylogeny) with fish.  I've been going over all the research done on the rift lake cichlids and related species and find it fascinating, but not nearly as fascinating as the S.A. cichlids and, coincidentally, your little darling Apistogramma genus.  ;)

I think the Amazon's environment lends itself to an increased possibility of a speciation process that I've been focusing on - something called sympatric speciation (going from one critter to many without geographic barriers getting in the way and stunting the gene pool.)  I also think the genus in specific is a good candidate for this process due to the incredible number of species within this genus and their extraordinary affinity to one another (... how much they resemble each other in morphology, behavior, ecological niche, life cycles, etc.)  Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  

A thorough review of your archives on thekrib.com shows that evolution/etc. is a somewhat taboo topic (since it drove some list members away back in March 2002).  Let me be clear, I'm not trying to start a discussion of speciation, evolution, or even phylogeny.  

Instead please consider this a request for information.  Since you seem to be highly educated people (again judging from various archive posts) I am going to assume that at least a few list members are aware of ongoing research where the subject is Apistos, their behavior, phylogeny, genetics, evolution, etc.  I have not done a search for published information as of today.  However I plan to and would like to know what/who to be on the lookout for.  There are many references to a Dr. Uwe Romer in Germany concerning Apisto's, so that's a start.  Are there other researchers who I should be particularly interested in?  

Also, current research rarely has any published data so these groups/persons are unlikely to show up in a document search.  If you know of anyone who is currently doing research on Apistos, or are yourself conducting research, please contact me.  Even if you did research previously for a BS or MS with Apistos.  I would really love to see what is already being done in the field and what I could possily contribute (through research) to our collective understanding of Apistogramma.