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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Co-Occurrence With A Congeneric Species Predicts Life History And Morphological Diversification In The Mexican Livebearing Fish Poelicopsis Baenschi, Laura E. Scott
Theses and Dissertations
Understanding why some species coexist and others do not remains one of the fundamental challenges of ecology. While several lines of evidence suggest that closely related species are unlikely to occupy the same habitat because of competitive exclusion, there are many cases where closely related species do co-occur. Research comparing sympatric and allopatric populations of co-occurring species provides a framework to understand the role of phenotypic diversification in species coexistence. In this study I focus on the livebearing fish Poeciliopsis baenschi and ask if differences in phenotypic traits among populations can be explained by the presence or absence of the …
Biogeography Of The Livebearing Fish Poecilia Gillii In Costa Rica: Are Phylogeographic Breaks Congruent With Fish Community Boundaries?, Jared Benjamin Lee
Biogeography Of The Livebearing Fish Poecilia Gillii In Costa Rica: Are Phylogeographic Breaks Congruent With Fish Community Boundaries?, Jared Benjamin Lee
Theses and Dissertations
One of the original goals of phylogeography was to use genetic data to identify historical events that might contribute to breaks among biotic communities. In this study, we examine the phylogeography of a common livebearing fish (Poecilia gillii) from Costa Rica. Our goal was to see if phylogeographic breaks in this species were congruent with previously-defined boundaries among four fish community provinces. We hypothesized that if abiotic factors influence both community boundaries and genetic structuring in P. gillii then we would find four monophyletic clades within our focal species that were geographically separated along community boundary lines. Similarly, we expected …