Cichlid Research Paper....

[paradigmcubed]

Hi,

I have been assigned a 5 page research paper in A.P. Environmental class on any topic or subject regarding biodiversity or ecology. I was thinking of centering my research paper upon African Cichlids of Lake Malawi and of course I knew you guys would be a valuable resource to me. I was thinking of centering my research paper upon the Biodiversity of African Cichlids of Lake Malawi and hopefully this would encompass the different genus', however I realize this cannot work because there is such a multitude of different genus'. Therefore, I am thinking of possibily doing the Biodiversity of certain genus' which would make this research paper more feasible. Once I did a description of these genus' I would need to go into greater depth and am wondering whether you guys think biodiversity would entail behavior, feeding habits, breeding, physical characteristics etc? Biodiversity is defined as biological diversity in an environment as indicated by numbers of different species of plants and animals. I cannot decide whether breeding, feeding habits would fit better under ecology defined as the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment. I think it may fit better under ecology because I could summarize the genus' and then go into depth about the behavior and feeding habbits. This would likely fit a great deal better because those are really their relationship between each other and their environment.

It would be great if you guys could give me some feedback on this, whether you think it is more biodiversity or ecology or neither. If you think these would fit better under some other topic feel free to tell me or if you think there is a better direction it could be taken in because I am just beginning to brainstorm ideas for the research paper and am VERY open to ideas, whether it is writting about these African Cichlids in a different aspect etc.

Thanks, Jacob

[demon_surfer]

what might be a better topic could be the frontosa. there are only about 5 diffrent types of frontosa and they all live in very diffrent conditions in their lake. You could then talk about the diffrences between the varietys and how this is shown/effected by their location in the lake.

[VoodooChild]

Demon's got a point, but if you did it on what you described it really would be both. If you're doing a comparison, then you're explaining the biodiversity of a certain genus. Within that you have the ecology of a specific species. A word of caution though, and this is why I agree with Demon, many genus' from Malawi (all of Cichlidae for that matter) are in a huge jumble and nobody knows where anything really should go and such a solution probably won't be around for decades. Make sure that you * your point with a disclaimer that your paper is based on current taxa. Look at www.fishbase.org for the most current species groupings. I'd pick a small genus, probably no more than 3-5 species.

[VoodooChild]

Another thought....if you can get access to your local university library, I'm sure you can find alot on what you need. Search the journals, such as Copeia. There's a whole heap of information out there on cichlids, and if you look you'll be well set.