The biodiversity, biogeography and evolutionary history of the non-cichlid fish fauna from the region of Lakes Kivu, Edward and Albert (Africa)

We propose a new model group for speciation research, the African small barbs (Enteromius), the world’s third species-richest fish genus, with a substantial unrecognised diversity. Contrary to most other species-rich groups, no sets of special features are found in Enteromius that can be linked to extraordinary speciation events. They live in rivers and display little variation in colour pattern, reproductive behaviour and morphology. This setting contrasts highly with e.g. the well-studied cichlid radiations. We will determine the Enteromius diversity in five African regions with a combined morphologic and multi-locus genetic approach. We will examine the degree of trophic specialisation via a 2D (head structures) and 3D (pharyngeal jaw) geometric morphometric approach, and analyse stable isotopes to assess the importance of ecological speciation. The species from Lake Edward and the Congo (partly) will be examined in more detail. For these species, we will perform the  firstever genome-wide scans for the genus, looking for structural variants and areas of divergence in closely related lineages. By analysing these areas and by annotating them against the genome of the zebra fish, we attempt to shed light on the speciation processes at the origin of the exceptional species richness in Enteromius.  Both approaches will be used to analyse distribution patterns to evaluate the importance of dispersal and vicariance events and to determine the role of hybridization events.