Yves Fermon

We assessed the fish diversity of the Ogooué and Sébé rivers in and around the Rapids of Mboungou Badouma and Doumé Ramsar site in Gabon. The ichthyofauna of this region has not been extensively sampled in over 150 years, yet encompasses one the most important type localities for fishes in Central Africa. We sampled a total of 31 sites and collected nearly 3000 fish specimens representing 97 species. Nine species appeared to be new to science, and one catalyzed the recent description of a new genus of mormyrid fishes.

Reconstructing the evolutionary history of a species is challenging. It often depends not only on the past biogeographic and climatic events but also the contemporary and ecological factors, such as current connectivity and habitat heterogeneity. In fact, these factors might interact with each other and shape the current species distribution. However, to what extent the current population genetic structure reflects the past and the contemporary factors is largely unknown. Here we investigated spatio-temporal genetic structures of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) populations, across their natural distribution in Africa. While its large biogeographic distribution can cause genetic differentiation at the paleo-biogeographic scales, its restricted dispersal capacity might induce a strong genetic structure at micro-geographic scales.