See and evolve

2008/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Eboluzioa
• Geologia

A pathway for the development of new species could be a different vision, according to a work done by biologists of the Bern University of Switzerland with African fish.

In Lake Victoria, in Africa, about 500 species of the family of cichlids live. The presence of so many species of the same family in one place is not easy to understand, since evolutionary theories argue that the most common way to create new species is to isolate populations. According to Swiss biologists, sight can be one of the keys.

In surface or transparent waters predominates the blue light and the fish of the genus Pundamilia are also blue. At greater depths, however, blue light is lost and red. Red fish predominate there. Well, the researchers have studied the variants of the gene that adjusts the vision, and have seen that the fish with variations that adjust the vision to the blue live at a lower depth and are blue and with the red on the reverse. In addition, females who see it more blue prefer the blue males and those who see it more red choose the red males.