Aquatic Ecology & Evolution

Evolution of gobies

Gobies are small fishes normally between 4 to 10 cm inhabiting most freshwaters, brackish, and marine habitats. With over 2500 species, gobies show a spectacular variety in morphology, behaviour, and ecology. They are well renown for their associations with various marine invertebrates, their cleaning behaviour, or their mutualistic associations with snapping shrimps. Major ecological shifts associated with evolutionary novelties in morphology or physiology characterizes many gobioid groups, as for example the amphibious mudskippers and the amphidromous freshwater rock-climbing gobies. By virtue of their abundance and diversity in coastal ichthyoplankton, cryptic tropical reef fish communities, freshwater streams of tropical oceanic islands, and estuarine benthos, gobioids play key roles in community structure and trophic dynamics of almost all coastal, shallow, marine habitats. Despite their evolutionary and ecological importance, phylogenetic intrarelationships of gobioids are poorly understood. Base on molecular phylogenetic I study various aspects of the evolutionary history of this fascinating group.