Continental diversification of an African catfish radiation (Mochokidae: Synodontis)

Despite African rivers containing high species diversity, continental-scale studies investigating the mechanisms generating biological diversity of African riverine faunas are limited compared to lacustrine systems.To investigate the build up of diversity in a tropical aquatic continental radiation, we test different models of lineage diversification and reconstruct the biogeographic history in a species-rich siluriform genus, Synodontis (~130 species), with a broad distribution across all major tropical African drainage basins. The resulting robust species-level phylogeny (~60% complete, based on a multigene dataset) exhibits a near constant rate of lineage accumulation throughout the mid-Cenozoic to Recent, irrespective of missing species and despite the changing environmental conditions that were prevalent during this time period. This pattern contrasts with the findings for species-level diversification of large clades that commonly show an early burst of cladogenesis followed by de...