Figure 2

Consensus BI Tree of the African cichlid phylogeny. Consensus tree (50% majority rule) of the African cichlid phylogeny based on the concatenated dataset. The dataset comprises mitochondrial and nuclear sequences of nine independent markers. Green numbers at nodes refer to bootstrap-values (BS, 1000 replicates) of the ML run and black numbers to Bayesian posterior probabilities (BPP). Filled circles represent a 100% BS support and 1.00 BPP and empty circles 1.00 BPP and lower BS values. Major groups within the phylogeny were named based on either their center of geographic distribution (Austrotilapiini and Boreotilapiini) or based on taxonomic aspects (Oreochromini). The asterisk (*) in the tree marks the type species of the genus Tilapia. The leaf stability index exceeded 0.95 for all specimens, except for clade AI (all taxa 0.90). Note that for clade AI only representatives of the EAR are included. The results presented here were verified using a more detailed taxon sampling based on ND2 (see additional file 3). The map in the lower left corner shows major distribution ranges for Austro- and Boreotilapiini. Pictured is T. ruweti.