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SYNOPSIS. Intraspecific modulatory multiplicity in the feeding mechanism of cichlids, as elucidated by electromyography, has profound implications on small-scale trophic events, the sum of which is the very core of such large-scale population and evolutionary phenomena as efficiency of trophic exploitation, niche width and overlap, competition and adaptation. The greatest paradox emerging from the study on intra-and interspecific differences in feeding repertoires of cichlid fishes is that the most specialized taxa are not only remarkable specialists in a narrow sense, but also jacks-of-all-trades. If specialists are simultaneously jacks-of-all-trades, how could they have evolved according to the widely accepted hypothesis that broadening the range of usable resources prevents species from specializing on individual types?
Karel F. Liem (Fri,) studied this question.