Patterns and drivers of killifish diversity in lowland Tanzania.

Temporary pools are seasonal wetland habitats with specifically adapted biota, including annual killifishes that survive habitat desiccation as diapausing eggs encased in dry sediment. To understand the patterns in the structure of assemblages and their potential in wetland conservation, we compared biodiversity components (alpha, beta, and gamma) between regions and estimated the role and sources of nestedness and turnover on their diversity. We sampled assemblages from 127 pools across seven local regions in lowland Eastern Tanzania over 2 years, using dip net and seine nets.

Individual experience as a key to success for the cuckoo catfish brood parasitism.

Brood parasites are involved in coevolutionary arms races with their hosts, whereby adaptations of one partner elicit the rapid evolution of counter-adaptations in the other partner. Hosts can also mitigate fitness costs of brood parasitism by learning from individual or social experience. In brood parasites, however, the role of learning can be obscured by their stealthy behaviour.

The sources of sex differences in aging in annual fishes.

Intersexual differences in life span (age at death) and aging (increase in mortality risk associated with functional deterioration) are widespread among animals, from nematodes to humans. Males often live shorter than females, but there is substantial unexplained variation among species and populations. Despite extensive research, it is poorly understood how life span differences between the sexes are modulated by an interplay among genetic, environmental and social factors.

Lifespan and telomere length variation across populations of wild-derived African killifish.

Telomeres and telomerase prevent the continuous erosion of chromosome-ends caused by lifelong cell division. Shortened telomeres are associated with age-related pathologies. While short telomere length is positively correlated with increased lethality at the individual level, in comparisons across species short telomeres are associated with long (and not short) lifespans.

Embryo ecology: Developmental synchrony and asynchrony in the embryonic development of wild annual fish populations.

Embryo-environment interactions are of paramount importance during the development of all organisms, and impacts during this period can echo far into later stages of ontogeny. African annual fish of the genus live in temporary pools and their eggs survive the dry season in the dry bottom substrate of the pools by entering a facultative developmental arrest termed diapause. Uniquely among animals, the embryos (encased in eggs) may enter diapause at three different developmental stages.