PRF: The Evolution of Parental Care, Mating Systems, and Associated Morphological Characters in Neotropical Cichlid Fishes

在以这些特征的多样性而闻名的蝉科中，几乎所有的父母照顾行为和交配系统都出现在地老虎亚科中。两个线粒体基因(细胞色素氧化酶II和另一个)的序列将被确定为食地动物物种和外群代表，并用于推导系统发育图。随着进化史的发展，以下问题将被解决：1)不同的父母照顾行为是以什么顺序进化的，它们在进化上有多不稳定？2)特定的父母照顾模式先于特定的交配系统还是相反？3)新的行为特征总是先于相关的形态特征的进化吗？4)区域分支图是如何食地动物与其他新热带鱼类类群的比较？5)在慈鱼中，细胞色素氧化酶II基因进化的加速速度在剑鱼中有多普遍？有了这一单一的系统发育，那些在行为生态学、分子和形态进化、鱼类系统学和新热带生物地理学等不同领域工作的人将会非常感兴趣的问题得到解答。

Almost all of the parental care behaviors and mating systems seen in the Cichlidae, a family noted for its diversity in these characters, are present in the subfamily Geophaginae. Sequences of two mitochondrial genes (cytochrome oxidase II and one other) will be determined for geophagine species and outgroup representatives, and used to derive a phylogeny. With the phylogeny, the following questions will be addressed: 1) In what sequence do the varied parental care behaviors evolve and how evolutionarily labile are they? 2) Do particular modes of parental care precede particular mating systems or vice-versa? 3) Do novel behavioral traits always precede the evolution of related morphological characters? 4) How does the area cladogram for geophagines compare to those of other neotropical fish groups? 5) How general among cichlids is the accelerated rate of cytochrome oxidase II gene evolution seen in Geophagus steindachneri? With this single phylogeny, questions of great interest will be answered to those working in such diverse fields as behavioral ecology, molecular and morphological evolution, fish systematics, and neotropical biogeograhy.