About
61
Publications
23,642
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
1,470
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (61)
Endeavours in species discovery, particularly the characterisation of cryptic species, have been greatly aided by the application of DNA molecular sequence data to phylogenetic reconstruction and inference of evolutionary and biogeographic processes. However, the extent of cryptic and undescribed diversity remains unclear in tropical freshwaters, w...
The biodiversity of northern Mozambique is likely one of the least known in southern Africa but is expected to harbor rich herpetofaunal diversity due to the high diversity in neighboring countries, the presence of diverse habitats, and its large size. Here, we summarize 19 years of reported observations and collections from the Pemba region in Cab...
The ‘‘Lacustricola’’ hutereaui species complex is herein defined by the possession of banded dorsal, anal, and caudal fins in males and also by the pointed premaxilla ascending process, in which the premaxilla medial surface is slightly convex. ‘‘Lacustricola’’ pygmaeus, new species, known from the Okavango, Cuando, and upper Zambezi Rivers, is dis...
Through the analysis of a comprehensive database of COI sequences, with the sequencing of 48 specimens , a first insight into the genetic diversity, distribution and relationships between the southern Africa "Lacustricola" species is presented. Species from "Lacustricola" occur mainly in freshwater systems within the arid savanna, and are considere...
Although the majority of cichlid diversity occurs in the African Great Lakes, these fish have also diversified across the African continent. Such continental radiations, occurring in both rivers and lakes have received far less attention than lacustrine radiations despite some members, such as the oreochromine cichlids (commonly referred to as ‘til...
Chubbyhead minnows are small, cold water, endemic cyprinids occurring, against others, in the highland plateaus of the Southern Congo basin. During recent field expeditions (2012-2017) in the Kundelungu National Park (KNP) (Upper-Katanga, DR Congo), new chubbyhead minnows were collected. Preliminary identification of these showed them to be similar...
There has been recent interest in the origin and assembly of continental biotas based on densely sampled species-level clades, however, studies from African freshwaters are few so that the commonality of macroevolutionary patterns and processes among continental clades remain to be tested. Within the Afrotropics, the Congo Basin contains the highes...
Unnoticed by the public, initiatives for oil exploration are advanced in Africa’s largest freshwater reservoirs, including Lakes Tanganyika, Malawi and lately Albert, threatening their ecosystems and biota. It is imperative that environmental impact assessments are conducted by independent organizations to ensure that decisions on this matter are b...
The river sardine, Mesobolabrevianalis (Boulenger, 1908), is the type species of Mesobola Howes, 1984. Standard phylogenetic analyses of partial sequences of the cytochrome oxidase I gene of individuals from populations across southern Africa that are currently identified as Mesobolabrevianalis showed that these populations represent four genetical...
The potential economic and energy security opportunities of a medium to large shale gas resource could be substantial for South Africa; as are both the potential social and environmental risks associated with a domestic gas industry in the Central Karoo. The development of shale gas using vertical and horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or...
As the world’s demands for hydrocarbons increase, remote areas previously made inaccessible by technological limitations are now being prospected for oil and gas deposits. Virtually unnoticed by the
public, such activities are ongoing in the East African Great Lakes region, threatening these ecosystems famed for their hyper-diverse biota, includin...
Angola's herpetofauna has been neglected for many years, but recent surveys have revealed unknown diversity and a consequent increase in the number of species recorded for the country. Most historical Angola surveys focused on the north-eastern and south-western parts of the country, with the south-east, now comprising the Kuando-Kubango Province,...
Uncovering biological diversity to more accurately understand diversity patterns, and ultimately the processes driving diversification, is important not only from an evolutionary perspective but also a conservation perspective. This is particularly pertinent in Africa's rivers in which overall diversity, as well as how it arose, is poorly understoo...
Lake Tanganyika (LT) is a biodiversity hotspot supporting many endemic radiations that provide comparative systems in which to investigate if there are common factors leading to the build-up of its considerable diversity. Despite LT containing the highest diversity of lacustrine catfishes on Earth, the evolutionary relationships of nocturnal catfis...
Despite African rivers containing high species diversity, continental-scale studies investigating the mechanisms generating biological diversity of African riverine faunas are limited compared to lacustrine systems.To investigate the build up of diversity in a tropical aquatic continental radiation, we test different models of lineage diversificati...
We morphologically and genetically studied the southern African electric fish Petrocephalus catostoma, or churchill, and its six nominal species, five of which by synonymization (three valid subspecies). We reinstate the synonymized species, and recognize Petrocephalus tanensis (Whitehead and Greenwood, 195982.
Whitehead , PJ and
Greenwood , PH....
The generic placement of the African Hylarana is still under debate (Frost 2011). We follow the latest taxonomy (Frost 2011) and refer to the genus as Hylarana. Of the eleven African species, only H. darlingi and H. galamensis have been recorded from Malawi (Mercurio 2011). We report the second confirmed record of H. darlingi in Malawi. Tadpoles of...
Nothobranchius niassa, new species, is described based on specimens collected in pools within seasonal streams in upper catchments of the Rovuma River, Niassa Reserve, northern Mozambique. It differs from its congeners by a unique combination of characters: dorsal fin rays 15-18, anal fin rays 15-17, light blue iris, light blue dorsal and anal fins...
Pectoral fin loss is a dramatic evolutionary phenomenon that has occurred independently in different teleost lineages. Here, we report the first case of pectoral fin loss in the Mastacembelidae (Teleostei: Synbranchiformes), with the discovery of a new species of mastacembelid from Lake Tanganyika (LT), Mastacembelus apectoralis sp. nov. M. apector...
Through adaptive radiation, ancestral species rapidly diversify into multiple species with different ecological adaptations. The haplochromine cichlid fishes of the East African Great Lakes are considered classic examples of adaptive radiation, but our understanding of the evolutionary origins of these radiations has been limited by inadequate taxo...
Phylogenetic relationships of African mastacembelid eels inferred from the Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) dataset, generated using Bayesian inference. Bayesian posterior probability values (BPP) are shown above the branch where support is >0.5.
Phylogenetic relationships of African mastacembelid eels inferred from two introns of ribosomal S7, generated using Bayesian inference. Bayesian posterior probability values (BPP) are shown above the branch where support is >0.5.
Table S1. Species, collection data and GenBank accession numbers for samples used in phylogenetic analyses.
Phylogenetic relationships of African mastacembelid eels inferred from the Cytochrome b (Cyt b) dataset, generated using Bayesian inference. Bayesian posterior probability values (BPP) are shown above the branch where support is >0.5.
Lake Tanganyika (LT) is the oldest of the African Rift Lakes and is one of the richest freshwater ecosystems on Earth, with high levels of faunal diversity and endemism. The endemic species flocks that occur in this lake, such as cichlid fishes, gastropods, catfish and crabs, provide unique comparative systems for the study of patterns and processe...
Synodontis catfish are a species-rich, tropical pan-African genus that predominately occur in fluviatile environments, but which also form a small radiation within Lake Tanganyika (LT). Here we estimate Synodontis relationships, based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, greatly expanding previous sampling. Data were analysed using different methods o...
3.1 Overview of the regional fauna
Thieme et al. (2005) listed the ecoregions of Africa, the reasons for their consideration as distinct entities, and described each ecoregion. The southern African regioncovered in this report contains 22 of the defined ecoregions (see Chapter 1: Figure 1.1 and Table 1.2). In terms of the fish fauna, however, ther...
Lepidiolamprologus mimicus n. sp. is described from material collected along the Zambian coast of Lake Tanganyika. It is distinguished from congeners by its unique color pattern of bright yellow fins, a brownish-tan flank coloration and large, dark brown spots along the flanks, in addition to a series of meristic and morphometric characters. Lepidi...
Lepidiolamprologus mimicus n. sp. is described from material collected along the Zambian coast of Lake Tanganyika. It is distinguished from congeners by its unique color pattern of bright yellow fins, a brownish-tan flank coloration and large, dark brown spots along the flanks, in addition to a series of meristic and morphometric characters. Lepidi...
The aim of this study was to contribute to the knowledge on the reproductive and feeding biology of the endangered Pseudobarbus phlegethon (Barnard 1938) in the Olifants River system, by providing estimates of its maturity, reproductive periodicity and the diet in the Noordhoeks River. The study was based on available specimens, stored in the fish...
Two new cichlid species, Neolamprologus walteri sp. nov. and N. chitamwebwai sp. nov., from the Bangwe peninsula (Tanzania), on the east coast of Lake Tanganyika, are described. Both species belong to the N. savoryi species complex, characterised by a lunate tail with long filaments. Neolamprologus chitamwebwai and N. walteri are highly stenotopic...
[From the executive summary]: The relationships within and between two yellowfish species, Labeobarbus aeneus (smallmouth yellowfish) and L. kimberleyensis (largemouth yellowfish) from the Orange-Vaal system were investigated through three independently conducted studies of the same material collected from the Sak River (the type locality of L. aen...
The Twee River redfin Barbus erubescens is a critically endangered small cyprinid endemic to the Twee River System, a subcatchment of the Olifants-Doring River System of South Africa. It is currently the most threatened freshwater fish in both the Cape Floristic Region and South Africa. It inhabits deep pools in perennial rivers that have an abunda...
Two new cichlid species, Neolamprologus walteri sp. nov. and N. chitamwebwai sp. nov., from the Bangwe peninsula
(Tanzania), on the east coast of Lake Tanganyika, are described. Both species belong to the N. savoryi species complex,
characterised by a lunate tail with long filaments. Neolamprologus chitamwebwai and N. walteri are highly stenotopic...
The cephalic and pectoral girdle structures of the South African catfish Austroglanis gilli are described and compared with those of other catfishes, either studied by us or described in the literature, as the foundation for a discussion on Austroglanididae autapomorphies, and also on the phylogenetic relationships between the austroglanidids and t...
Fish populations in the Rondegat River, a mountain stream in the Olifants-Doring system in the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa were surveyed to assess the impact of predatory alien invasive smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu (Lacepède) on the indigenous fishes. This was the first such attempt to quantify the predatory impacts of M. dolomieu w...
The haplochromine cichlid fish of the East African Great Lakes represent some of the fastest and most species-rich adaptive radiations known, but rivers in most of Africa accommodate only a few morphologically similar species of haplochromine cichlid fish. This has been explained by the wealth of ecological opportunity in large lakes compared with...
Correction for ‘Nuclear markers reveal unexpected genetic variation and a Congolese–Nilotic origin of the Lake Victoria cichlid species flock’ by O. Seehausen, E. Koetsier, M. V. Schneider, L. J. Chapman, C. A. Chapman, M. E. Knight, G. F. Turner, J. J. M. van Alphen and R. Bills (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270 , 129–137. (doi: [10.1098/rspb.2002.2153][...
Phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial (mt) DNA have indicated that the cichlid species flock of the Lake Victoria region is derived from a single ancestral species found in East African rivers, closely related to the ancestor of the Lake Malawi cichlid species flock. The Lake Victoria flock contains ten times less mtDNA variation than the La...
Watershed deforestation, road building, and other anthropogenic activities result in sediment inundation of lacustrine habitats. In Lake Tanganyika, this threatens the survival of many rock-dwelling species by altering the structure and quality of rocky habitats. We investigated the relationship between habitat quality, as related to watershed dist...
The genus Platythelphusa is revised and six species are recognized. These species are P. armata A. Milne-Edwards, 1887, P. maculata (Cunnington, 1899), P. conculata Cunnington, 1907, P. tuberculata Capart, 1952, P. polita Capart, 1952 and P. echinata Capart, 1952. A seventh taxon, P. denticulata Capart, 1952 is considered here to be a junior synony...
This project investigated the reproductive and feeding biology of Lamprologus ornatipinnis. Specimens were collected monthly from North Bay, Mbita Island, Zambia for a year. Dentition was examined under a scanning electron microscope, stomach contents were analysed using the Index of Relative Importance (IRI) and mean Gonado-somatic Indices (GSI) w...
A new species of cichlid fish in the genus Lamprologus is described from Lake Tanganyika, Zambia. Lamprologus laparogramma sp. n. is sexually dimorphic and dichromatic and can be distinguished from other Lamprologus by the following characters: 14-15 dorsal fin spines; 5-6 anal fin spines; 4-6 rakers along the lower limb of the first gill arch; upp...
Rapid erosion as a consequence of deforestation is resulting in the discharge of large volumes of sediment into normally clear-water littoral and sublittoral environments. The authors determined species richness patterns among ostracodes, fish, and diatoms for undisturbed, moderately disturbed, and highly disturbed areas. Ostracodes are significant...
Observations of habitats are reported. A series of underwater experiments were conducted in natural habitats to answer questions concerning a) why Lamprologus ocellatus and Lamprologus ornatipinnis bury gastropod shells refuges into the substrate, and b) to examine interspecies differences in shell-using behaviours. Some behaviour patterns were ana...
