Age, development and limnology of extant Tibetan Plateau lakes: A reconstruction based on phylogeography and palaeoecology of the gastropod genus Radix

2008-2014: In cooperation with Frank Riedel, Steffen Mischke, Uwe Wiechert, Andreas Winkler (Geological Sciences, FU Berlin) and Hucai Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences). Supported by DFG grants RI 809/21-1, WI 1902/7-1, RI 809/21-2 and WI 1902/7-2

The project aims at a better understanding of age and dynamics of existing Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau lakes (China). The interplay of climate, tectonics and lake development has been studied by authors in respect to some lakes; however, so far no attempts have been made to interlink phylogeographical and paleoenvironmental studies in order to unravel the evolution of plateau lakes within a broader spatial and temporal context. Such an approach is proposed here in order to test different hypotheses concerning the geological and limnological history of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau lakes. The aquatic gastropod genus Radix, which belongs to the very few plateau-wide distributed invertebrate taxa, and the first invaders of a newly developed lake (e.g., after the retreat of a glacier), represents the biological and paleontological vehicle for the studies to be conducted. Populations of living Radix as well as fossil shells will be investigated from a total of 26 lake systems. These lake systems are scattered over most of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, being located in different climatic and tectonic settings. A chronology of major genetic events in Radix spp. will be developed by using sophisticated molecular dating methods, and these data are then to be linked to geological, limnological, and climate data from the plateau. The second avenue of research is to establish Radix as a (paleo-) environmental proxy by geochemical and morphometrical means. The environmental signals preserved in fossil shells will be used to infer past hydrological changes by calibrating the fossil signals with signals from extant gastropods derived from well characterized habitats. Integration of phylogeographical and paleoenvironmental data will allow outlining specific lake histories, which can be used to generate a more general picture for the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau than hitherto possible. Further information can be found at: http://www.tip.uni-tuebingen.de/