Lake Malawi

Maybe the first question I get is: um, Malawi, and that’s where……? Inevitably, I say do you know where Madagascar is? Go straight west from Madagascar into the African continent, you’ll find Malawi. It is known as the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’.

This, however, is not how I found Malawi. I found Malawi as an undergraduate with work study support. A faculty member was hiring someone to clean fish tanks. I applied for the job, was hired, and spent three years cleaning tanks. Along the way, I learned about Malawi, its cichlid fish and their biological importance.

The second question I am asked (and always the first question my mother asks before I go back to Malawi) is: why do you need to go to Malawi? The answer to this question is straightforward (from a professional perspective). I am an evolutionary biologist, I study speciation. To address questions relating to speciation, there are few natural systems that are better suited than the fishes of Lake Malawi. Within the past 2-5 million years since the formation of Lake Malawi, over 1500 species of cichlid fish have diverged from a single common ancestor. That is, within 2 million years, a single cichlid species invaded Lake Malawi and speciated from one species into over 1500 species. The cichlids of Lake Malawi are the most recent and most rapid vertebrate speciation event ever identified. As such, they are the perfect natural laboratory to study how and why species are formed.

Yet my trips to Malawi serve a purpose greater than purely professional. I first came to Malawi as a young man, just after I graduated from my undergraduate studies. For the academic year of 1995-1996, I lived in Chirombo village and studied the cichlids of Lake Malawi as a Fulbright scholar. Though what I learned was much more than can be confined to cichlids.

I learned about the privilege that my place of birth provided. I saw unimaginable poverty and hardship. Mostly though, I learned about the joy of every day life, the happiness in the presence of need, the generosity of spirit, and an infinite kindness. These things were not taught, but rather experienced.

Now, 15 years later, I’ve brought students of my own to Malawi. We are here to study the speciation of the cichlid fishes. We hope to understand the genetic basis of divergent color pattern, the geographic distribution of fish courtship songs (fish sing much like birds or crickets to attract mates), and the ecological rules that allow the co-existence of so many closely related species of fish. This is what I am teaching my students. What I hope they learn while in Malawi, however, is much greater than anything I could ever hope to teach them.

From the warm heart of Africa….yindane bwino.


- Dr. Pat Danley has been with the Biology Department at University for three years, teaching Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Ecology and Population Genetics. For being a Pittsburg native, he has a pretty good grasp on the Chichewa language.