US-South Africa Planning Visit: The Cape of Good Hope Region as a Model to Understand Marine Speciation

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0117358BernardiThis award supports a planning visit to South Africa by Professor Giacomo Bernardi, Department of Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz in June 2001. Professor Bernardi will work with Professor Paulette Bloomer, Department of Genetics, University of Pretoria to evaluate the possibility of doing a study on fish species whose populations are found across the Cape of Good Hope region. They will determine whether matching biogeographic and phylogeographic breaks would be found there. The mechanisms involved in the formation of species (speciation) in the marine environment are poorly known. Several models have been proposed to explain the processes of marine speciation. One well-studied system, in the southeastern United States, emphasized the role of genetic partitioning of populations across a defined geographic region (phylogeographic break). This phylogeographic break also matched a region of species discontinuity (biogeographic boundary). This system is now well documented, but so far has not been generalized to other systems. During the planning visit to South Africa, Bernardi and Bloomer will try to collect fishes whose populations are found on both Atlantic and Indian Ocean sides of the Cape Region and that are endemic to Southern Africa. If successful, they will formulate proposals for cooperative research proposals to US and South African funding agencies.