Re: Apisto molecular phylogeny -Reply

[William Vannerson <William_Vannerson@ama-assn.org>]

>>What would that tell us, unless we had distribution information on the
two forms?<<

Perhaps apistos from different locales are not as genetically divergent as
killies.  At a base level, any phylogeny work would tell us just how big of
an issue there really exists.  For example, a given species may end up
being multiple species.  That would encourage the hobby to develop the
practice of tracking location codes.  The difficulty there is that exporters
and LFS' are not likely to participate to any large extent.  The exporters in
particular are often reluctant to reveal where their sources are for fear
of someone else invading "their" territory.  Killies avoid this problem by
not being readily available from exporters & LFS'.  It's typically a hobbyist
or a scientist that does the collecting, and they adhere to the collection
code rule.

Another possibility would be to validate and clarify the complexes.  One
thing that Tomas Hrbek told us regarding his phylogeny work with killies
is that physical traits, behaviors and adaptations are not always a
accurate indicator of related species.

His studies have shown that the trait of annualism, where the eggs go
into a diapause (resting) state, evolved separately with two different
groups.  This differs from the notion that all annual killies evolved from a
common ancestor.   After the first group of killies developed annualism, a
group of Rivulus lost their annualism.  Later, as oceans receded and the
new territories were invaded by the non-annuals, annualism developed
again in those biomes where it aided survival.

Where this relates to apistos is that fish in a given complex may not be
closely related at all. A study, even without location, could show the
relative organizations of different apisto species.

Bill Vannerson
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/william_vannerson


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