Research Interests of George W. Barlow

As a professor emeritus I no longer accept graduate or post-doctoral students. Nor do I apply for extramural grants. Consequently, my research is limited to low-budget questions, but within that context I still engage in some research. Most of this is done with cichlid fishes in the lab or by doing literature research.

Julidochromis marlieri

I can do lab research only with the help of undergraduate volunteers. Fortunately, many students at Berkeley are eager to engage in research. Depending on the interests and talents of the volunteers, the questions we ask of cichlid fishes range from remarkably simple to fairly sophisticated.

The research centers on the behavior of cichlid fishes. Currently, we are concentrating on a charming group of species from Lake Tanganyika, Africa. They are in the genus Julidochromis. What first attracted us to the Julies, as they are called by hobbyists, is that they appeared to be the only fishes with true polyandry. In that mating system, the social unit consists of an enduring relationship between one female mated with up to two different males. Recent unpublished field studies by a Japanese team of scientists, however, indicate an exceedingly flexible mating system that includes polyandry. Our laboratory research is revealing even more flexibility.

We are also doing simple experiments on what a Julie considers the ideal nest site. Should it be close to the bottom, or elevated above it, as some aquarists believe? Should it have but one or multiple entrances? Designing and executing these modest experiments allows the undergraduate student to see how a scientist proposes a hypothesis and sets out to test it with experiments that employ balanced design and with the appropriate controls.

In each of the last two years, one of the undergraduates has gone on to graduate school. Jonathon Lee is now pursuing a PhD at Cornell University and his dissertation research involves the midshipman, a fish that spawns intertidally along our Pacific Coast and features "hooting" males and a complex mating system. The other student, Ray Engeszer, is doing his doctoral program at the University of Texas, Austin; his research will most likely involve swordtails, close relatives of the common guppy.

I continue to work up data from old experiments and to report the findings in the scientific literature. I also pursue literature research, primarily on the biological roots of war.