Did the Dinaric Alps force an arid climate and speciation during Miocene Climatic Optimum?

安第斯山脉和喜马拉雅山脉等大型山脉的上升与气候之间的因果关系已得到证实。在那里，一个显著的隆起引发了气候变化，导致了整个山脉不同的沉积环境和动物物种形成。考虑到沉积和古生物记录，我们测试了这种关系存在的假设，并在类似程度上影响了沉积和物种形成在较低的山脉，如欧洲东南部的迪纳里阿尔卑斯山脉（Dinarides）。沉积学和古生物学资料表明，中新世气候最适期（MCO） Dinarides的地形隆升对区域对比（即干旱与湿润条件和动物群分布）的发展起了重要作用。然而，由于不确定跨山脉的盆地是否是同一时期的，对因果关系的分析受到了很大的阻碍。这种不确定性是由于迪纳里德斯内部沉积序列的年龄限制很差。在本研究中，我们将验证第纳里德斯的生长影响了不同气候条件的假设，从而导致了MCO期间第纳里德斯盆地不同的沉积环境和动物物种形成。这一假设将通过对位于Dinarides内部的盆地进行系统测年来验证，该测年使用的是凝灰岩层和碳酸盐沉积物的U-Pb测年。此外，这将得到整个范围内动物群时空分布的修订的支持。最后，将这项工作提供的新的数值年龄约束与现有的数值年龄（主要限制在迪纳里德纪的外部部分）相结合，将使我们能够对孤立盆地的沉积和动物演替进行造山带范围的对比。由此产生的数据框架将使我们能够精确地评估“小”山脉（如Dinarides山脉）的增长、区域气候变化及其生物群的适应性辐射之间的因果关系。

Causal links between the rise of large mountain ranges such as the Andes and Himalayas and climate have been demonstrated. There, a significant uplift provokes climate change lead-ing to contrasting depositional environments and fauna speciation across the range. Consider-ing the sedimentary and paleontological records we test the hypothesis that this relationship exists and affects deposition and speciation to a similar degree in the lower mountain ranges such as the Dinaric Alps (Dinarides) in SE Europe. Sedimentological and paleontological data suggest that the topographic uplift of the Dinarides played an important role in the development of the regional contrasting, i.e. arid vs humid conditions and fauna distribution across the Dinarides during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO). However, the analysis of causal relations is greatly hampered by the uncertainty about whether the basins across the mountain range were coeval or not. This uncertainty lies in very poor age constraints of the sedimentary successions in the internal part of the Dinarides. In this study, we will test the hypothesis that the growth of the Dinarides influenced contrasting climatic conditions leading to contrasting depositional environments and fauna speciation in the basins across the Dinarides during the MCO. This hypothesis will be tested by a systematic dating of the basins located in the internal part of the Dinarides using U-Pb dating of tuff layers and carbonate sediments. Furthermore, this will be supported by the revision of the temporal and spatial distribution of fauna across the range. Finally, integration of the new numerical age constraints provided by this work with the existing numerical ages (mostly constrained to the external part of the Dinarides) will allow us an orogen-wide correlation of sedimentary and faunal successions in the isolated basins. The resulting data framework will enable us to precisely assess causal links between the growth of the “small” mountain ranges, such as the Dinarides, the regional climate change, and the adaptive radiation of its biota.