Some relationships between the great diversity of fishes and physical and biological aspects of the environment in the Amazon and Congo basins are discussed.Aspects of physical environment considered are rainfall regimes; stabilizing influence of forests; seasonal fluctuations in water le; white water, clear water, and black water; relative accessibility of Amazon and Congo basins to marine fishes; tidal conditions in the lower Amazon; shoreline and islands; river anastomoses and connections with adjacent basins; stream captures; unique or peculiar biotypes: causes of massi mortalitv' of fishes.The main adaptive significance of parental care in Amazon and Congo fishes is e related to reproduction in deoxygenated waters.The following topics are considered under biological interactions: fishes with brilliant coloration or conspicuous markings; association of similarh' colored species of fishes in mixed schools; fishes of minute size: responses to predation; and partitioning of food resources.Aliout one third of the paper is devoted to discussion of trophic adaptations and feeding habits.The topics considered are predatory fishes; scale-eating characoids; fin-eating characoids; feeding habits of "parasitic" trichomycterid catfishes; parallelism in feeding habits of "weakl\-electrogenic" fishes in the Amazon and Congo basins; plankton-feeding fishes; deposit feeders; and feeding habits of characins and other fishes in Amazonian rainforest streams.
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Tyson R. Roberts (1972) studied this question.