Department Fish Ecology and Evolution
Digging deep into Lake Victoria's past
20,000 years of evolution and ecosystem dynamics in the world’s largest tropical lake reconstructed from sediment cores, fossils, and ancient DNA.
In this project we are interested in understanding how physical and chemical environments interact (reciprocally or otherwise) with biodiversity change over the course of ecosystem development. Lake Victoria filled rapidly about 20K years ago and a hallmark of the ecosystem is the adaptive radiation of cichlids, which has culminated in over 500 species. We are interested in how this radiation both emerges from, and subsequently affects, ecosystem dynamics.
