During February I attended a talk by George Turner who is a lecturer at Bangor University on cichlids, a family of fish that are common in Africa and South America.
Cichlids of Lake Malawi
Recent work by George Turner has included beginning to sequence the cichlid species in Lake Malawi, this is done via a genome wide dataset. One species that is mentioned during this talk is Astatotilapia calliptera, the Eastern Happy fish. This is of particular interest as it is found within the Lake, rivers flowing in and out of the Lake but also in rivers that have no links to the lake. This indicated that the rivers in that area were once all linked with the lake forming later on and fish moving into the lake from the rivers.
Tanzania Rivers and Craters
During his time in Africa George Turner worked in Tanzania collecting fish as the old specimens were not maintained therefore in poor condition. During this time four new species of cichlid were discovered. Another study in Tanzania took place in the crater lakes, during this time it was determined that each of the seven main lakes contain species endemic to that lake alone. This is due to differences in the depth of water in each lake causing speciation.
My Thoughts and My Career
I did not find this talk engaging; this may be due to my lack of interest into the topics that this talk covers. Even though I do not have a passion in this topic I can however see an importance in the understanding of species diversity as it enables more productive ecosystems with each animal filling a niche.
I do not think that the topic of the talk itself will be an area that I will go into in the future. On the other hand, this talk has shown me that through research even the most complex of concepts, such as the cichlid family tree, can be made sense out of. Knowing this may motivate me in the future if I come across something complicated in my own work that needs solving.
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