TY - JOUR AU - Schedel, Frederic Dieter Benedikt AU - Musilova, Zuzana AU - Schliewen, Ulrich Kurt PY - 2019 DA - 2019/04/25 TI - East African cichlid lineages (Teleostei: Cichlidae) might be older than their ancient host lakes: new divergence estimates for the east African cichlid radiation JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology SP - 94 VL - 19 IS - 1 AB - Cichlids are a prime model system in evolutionary research and several of the most prominent examples of adaptive radiations are found in the East African Lakes Tanganyika, Malawi and Victoria, all part of the East African cichlid radiation (EAR). In the past, great effort has been invested in reconstructing the evolutionary and biogeographic history of cichlids (Teleostei: Cichlidae). In this study, we present new divergence age estimates for the major cichlid lineages with the main focus on the EAR based on a dataset encompassing representative taxa of almost all recognized cichlid tribes and ten mitochondrial protein genes. We have thoroughly re-evaluated both fossil and geological calibration points, and we included the recently described fossil †Tugenchromis pickfordi in the cichlid divergence age estimates. SN - 1471-2148 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1417-0 DO - 10.1186/s12862-019-1417-0 ID - Schedel2019 ER -