Adaptive Significance of Intra- and Interspecific Differences in the Feeding Repertoires of Cichlid Fishes

Abstract

SYNOPSIS. Intraspecific modulatory multiplicity in the feeding mechanism of cichlids, as elucidated by electromyography, has profound implications on small-scale trophic events, the sum of which is the very core of such large-scale population and evolutionary phenomena as efficiency of trophic exploitation, niche width and overlap, competition and adaptation. The greatest paradox emerging from the study on intra-and interspecific differences in feeding repertoires of cichlid fishes is that the most specialized taxa are not only remarkable specialists in a narrow sense, but also jacks-of-all-trades. If specialists are simultaneously jacks-of-all-trades, how could they have evolved according to the widely accepted hypothesis that broadening the range of usable resources prevents species from specializing on individual types?