Supplementary Material S1 to Ola Svensson, Katie Woodhouse, Alan Smith, Ole Seehausen, George F Turner, Sympatry and parapatry among rocky reef cichlids of Lake Victoria explained by female mating preferences, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2023;, voad006, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voad006

Among all known Lake Victoria haplochromines, females alone brood the eggs and fry in their mouths, occasional exceptions in the lab notwithstanding (Seehausen 1996). Free-swimming fry are guarded for a few days (Seehausen, 1996). Long-term pair bonds are unknown, and the offspring of a single clutch may be sired by multiple males (Svensson et al., 2017). Females are generally more cryptic, whereas males are larger, more conspicuous and aggressively territorial (Seehausen, 1996). The males have bright nuptial colouration of either one of three patterns that are widespread among Lake Victoria cichlid species and referred to as ‘blue’, ‘red dorsum’ or ‘red chest’ (Seehausen et al., 1998; Seehausen and van Alphen, 1999), each of which also exists in melanic forms where the underlying colour pattern can be largely disguised. Among rocky shore cichlids, these different colour pattern groups are associated with different habitats: ‘blue’ and ‘red chest’ males breed in shallow water over gently sloping substrate, ‘red dorsum’ males breed in similar habitats but deeper, and melanic forms breed even deeper or at steeply dropping rock faces (Seehausen, 1996). The five species of the present study belong to a complex of more than 20 congeneric taxa (Seehausen, 1996; Seehausen et al., 1998). They originate from south-eastern Lake Victoria (Tanzania) around islands in the Speke Gulf; Igombe Island, Makobe Island, Ruti Island, Zue Island, not further apart than 50km (Figure 1). All have similar ecology, inhabiting rocky shores and reefs and feeding largely on plankton and benthic invertebrates (Bouton et al., 1997; Maan et al., 2008; Seehausen, 1996; Seehausen et al., 1998). Their phylogenetic relationships are complicated and characterized by lineage fusion through admixture and lineage fission through speciation (Meier et al., in press).