Post #1013

Genomic islands of speciation separate cichlid ecomorphs in an East African crater lake. The term species is still controversial, and scientists mostly describe species by means of morphological features, and several DNA markers (mt vs. nuclear). Basically, any morphological signal is associated with correspond gene in DNA. But finding the outliers of this gene between comparison group is complicated. And sometimes, species with high morphological differences may possess extremely low genetic differences, making it difficult to convince species delimitation. Sometimes, vice versa. Another paradox is that there is no threshold for morphological variation for species, like how many traits should differ, or at which stage of difference we should recognize several species. Thus, in the era of genomics, we integrate morphology with genomics, and answer those challenges questions. The above paper, is one of the highly cited example for how to navigate genomics and morphology for speciation.