Meeting Abstract

P3.70  Wednesday, Jan. 6  Genetic connectivity between morphologically distinct populations of the Ethiopian fish Barbus paludinosis BERGE, Kathryn A.*; BERENDZEN, Peter B.; GOLUBTSOV, Alexander S.; University of Northern Iowa; University of Northern Iowa; A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology & Evolution kberge@uni.edu

Barbus paludinosis, the African straightfinned barb, is widely distributed throughout eastern and southern Africa. Within Ethiopia, the fish is found within the Omo, White Nile and Blue Nile systems as well as lakes in the Ethiopian Rift Valley. In these areas an interesting phenomenon occurs; the characteristic serrated dorsal spine of B. paludinosis is drastically reduced in the headwaters of the Blue Nile, White Nile and Omo drainages. However, downstream the fish have the normally prominent spine. This separation occurs in populations which are geographically isolated from one another by waterfalls where a predator is present below and absent above. The objectives of this study are: 1) to examine connectivity and population structure in isolated populations of B. paludinosis and 2) to determine the relatedness of individuals found in separate drainages. Three sources of data, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data and polymorphic microsatellites, will be used to examine genetic variation at different temporal and spatial scales. Early results from the mitochondrial data reveal that barbs are related by drainage and not ecophenotype. Preliminary results will be presented.