Friday, October 12, 2012: 4:00 AM
Hall 4E/F (WSCC)
Labyrinth fishes are a relatively large radiation of percomorphs (roughly 120 species) found in the freshwaters of Asia and Africa that exhibit considerable diversity in body shape. This project aims to quantify body shape diversity amongst these fishes and trace their body shape evolution using a recent molecular phylogeny of 60 Labyrinth species. We collected specimens spread across the 3 major clades and cleared and double stained at least two individuals for each species. We adopt a metric known as the Vertebrate Shape Index (VSI) that uses head dimensions, vertebral shape in the caudal and pre-caudal regions, and overall body dimensions to quantify body shape . We anticipate that VSI will enable us to identify which morphological features contribute to the body shape diversity amongst these species as well as reveal which morphological features differ within each clade. Tracing the evolution of body shape diversity amongst Labyrinth fishes will also help us to examine whether or not morphological diversification is correlated with ecological differences among clades.