Abstract
The East African Great Lakes are inhabited by impressive radiations of cichlids that display a large variation in morphology, diet, colour pattern, and behaviour and have adapted to a large array of niches. Whilst most of these cichlids are bottom dwellers, a number of species have adapted to a pelagic environment and inhabit open waters. From the Lake Edward system, one pelagic species had been previously described, the zooplanktivorous Haplochromis pappenheimi. Our sampling revealed the Lake Edward system to be inhabited by two more pelagic species that were unknown to science and are formally described here, the zooplanktivorous Haplochromis pelagicus sp. nov. and the insectivorous H. aureus sp. nov. All three species seem mostly restricted to deepwater regions where the depth exceeds six metres in Lake Edward, except for H. pelagicus sp. nov., which also occurs in shallower regions of Lakes Edward and George and of the Kazinga Channel. Sexual dimorphism, mainly in head shape, was discovered in H. pappenheimi and H. pelagicus sp. nov. These differences suggest that females of these species have larger buccal cavities than males, which is most likely linked to female mouth brooding behaviour.
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Data availability
Raw data of all catches generated during this study are provided in Supplementary information (Table S1). Summarised morphometric data are provided in Table 2 and Supplementary information (Table S12); raw morphometric data is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This research was conducted within the framework of the BELSPO (Belgian Science Policy Office) funded BRAIN projects HIPE (Human impacts on ecosystem health and resources of Lake Edward) and KEAFish (The biodiversity, biogeography and evolutionary history of the northern basins of the Great African Lakes: the enigmatic fish faunas of Lakes Kivu, Edward and Albert revisited) and an FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) funded PhD fellowship to NV (11E0520N). MM benefitted from a FishBase and Fish taxonomy training (2016) through the framework agreement of the RMCA with the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid. The fieldwork by NV, MVS, and ED was supported by the FWO and fieldwork by MVS by the King Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation. We thank L. Wasswa (Ugandan Fisheries Department) and M. Bifamengo (NaFIRRI, Uganda) for their help in collecting specimens, and W. Okello (NaFIRRI, Uganda) for valuable logistic support. We are grateful to M. Parrent (RMCA), O. Pauwels (IRSNB), J. Maclaine (NHMUK), and E. Aßel (ZMB) for curatorial services, E. Aßel for the provided photograph and X-ray image of the lectotype of H. pappenheimi, and support from the SYNTHESYS+ Project, http://www.synthesys.info/, which is financed by European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the H2020 Integrating Activities Programme, Project number 823827.
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Vranken, N., Van Steenberge, M., Mbalassa, M. et al. Just below the surface, the pelagic haplochromine cichlids from the Lake Edward system. Hydrobiologia 850, 3173–3195 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05246-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05246-y