Evolution of Color in the Red Devil Ciclid

Lily Friedman
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150109093727.htm
By: Monash UniversityPublished: January 9th, 2015


Summary: 
When individuals from the same species come in different colors, why doesn’t one color eventually replace the others through natural selection? The Journal of Evolutionary Biology has studied a species of Central American freshwater fish, called the red devil cichlid, to see how different colors are maintained. This species comes in two colors; dark and gold. The gold color is genetically dominant, but the dark color is much more common. When the researchers filmed the red devil cichlids over both dark and light surfaces, they saw that the dark fish could alter its brightness to match the surface it was on, but the gold fish could not. This extra layer of camouflage helps hide the dark colored fish from predators, so they are more fit to survive in their environment. This study is being used to answer the big question of how and why do variants of the same animal exist in nature.


Relevance: 
This is an example of natural selection, because even though the gold color is dominant, the dark color is more common. The dark colored fish are likely to be able to hide from predators, and survive long enough to have offspring and pass of their dark-colored gene. The gold fish are more likely to be eaten by predators, and not pass on their genes to the next generation, which is why the dark color is more common. Eventually, the species could evolve to have only dark colored fish because of this natural selection.