With more than 600 young and ecologically diverse species, the adaptive radiation of Lake Malawi cichlid fish provides a superb system to study speciation and the evolution of species biodiversity.

At the Sanger Institute, we are working to create extensive genomic resources for Lake Malawi cichlids that are available to the research community. Up until the end of 2015 we sequenced more than 150 samples of more than 70 species that span all of the radiation. We are currently analysing these samples and will release genetic variation data in 2016. We are also working on an improved reference genome for Astatotilapia calliptera using long reads. Genomic resources are available here.

On field trip in February/March 2016, we collected samples from ~240 species, including over 1400 tissue samples for DNA sequencing, 1300 preserved specimens that will form a collection at the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, and 250 tissue samples from 12 species for RNA sequencing. We also obtained high quality photographs for each of the specimens.