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The origin and future of an endangered crater lake endemic; phylogeography and ecology of Oreochromis hunteri and its invasive relatives

  • ADVANCES IN CICHLID RESEARCH III
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Abstract

Cichlids of the genus Oreochromis (“Tilapias”) are intensively used in aquaculture around the world. In many cases, when “Tilapia” were introduced for economic reasons to catchments that were home to other, often endemic, Oreochromis species, the loss of native species followed. Oreochromis hunteri is an endemic species of Crater Lake Chala on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and is part of a small species flock in the upper Pangani drainage system of Tanzania. We identified three native and three invasive Oreochromis species in the region. Reconstructing their phylogeography, we found that O. hunteri is closely related to, but distinct from the other members of the upper Pangani flock. However, we found a second, genetically and phenotypically distinct Oreochromis species in Lake Chala whose origin we cannot fully resolve. Our ecological and ecomorphological investigations revealed that the endemic O. hunteri is currently rare in the lake, outnumbered by each of three invasive cichlid species. It is mitochondrially, phenotypically and trophically distinct from all others. The occurrence of the formerly abundant O. hunteri in such small numbers, its narrow habitat restriction and its limited morphological variability suggest recent population decline and loss of niche breadth in this critically endangered endemic cichlid species.

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Data availability

Mitochondrial sequences are available on GenBank (Accession Numbers MH717378 - MH717444). Phenotypic data are available on Dryad (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v24tb57).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Tanzanian Fisheries Research Institute (TAFIRI) for hosting and facilitating our research, COSTECH for research permits and the Lake Chala Safari Lodge for their support during fieldwork. We thank Mhoja Kayeba, Mohamed Haluna and Jonathan Makoye for their skilful help in the field, Guy Schnidrig and Vera Ogi for preparing stable isotope samples and conducting morphological measurements.

Funding

This research was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant No. 31003A_144046 to OS. This research was done under research permits No. 2013-251-ER-2014-177 (FM), 2013-256-NA-2014-177 (JvR) and 2013-251-NA-2014-177 (OS) from the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquatic Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Florian N. Moser, Jacco C. van Rijssel, Salome Mwaiko & Ole Seehausen

  2. Department of Fish Ecology & Evolution, EAWAG, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Biogeochemistry, 6047, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland

    Florian N. Moser, Jacco C. van Rijssel, Salome Mwaiko & Ole Seehausen

  3. Wageningen Marine Research, Wageningen University & Research, IJmuiden, The Netherlands

    Jacco C. van Rijssel

  4. Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute, Box 9750, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Benjamin Ngatunga

Authors
  1. Florian N. Moser
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  2. Jacco C. van Rijssel
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  3. Benjamin Ngatunga
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  4. Salome Mwaiko
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  5. Ole Seehausen
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Contributions

FM carried out fieldwork, participated in the design of the study, helped generating stable isotope, morphological and genetic data, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript together with OS. JvR and BN carried out fieldwork. SM helped in the laboratory and generated genetic data. OS designed and coordinated the study, made the sampling design, identified the samples and wrote the manuscript together with FM.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ole Seehausen.

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We have no competing interests.

Additional information

Guest editors: S. Koblmüller, R. C. Albertson, M. J. Genner, K. M. Sefc & T. Takahashi / Advances in Cichlid Research III: Behavior, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

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Moser, F.N., van Rijssel, J.C., Ngatunga, B. et al. The origin and future of an endangered crater lake endemic; phylogeography and ecology of Oreochromis hunteri and its invasive relatives. Hydrobiologia 832, 283–296 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3780-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3780-z

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