The role of the Pleistocene mega-lake Palaeo-Makgadikgadi, Kalahari, for the biodiversity and biogeographys of modern non-marine aquatic organism of southern Africa, with special focus on riverine gastropods

在末次冰期，在南部非洲的卡拉哈里盆地可能存在一个巨大的湖泊，其规模可能与现存的维多利亚湖一样大。最近对慈鲷鱼的遗传学调查表明，这一古-Makgadikgadi湖可能对了解南部非洲非海洋水生生物的现代生物多样性和生物地理学起着关键作用。地貌数据表明，以前存在一个封闭的盆地湖泊，因此质疑淡水条件的可能性，并认为淡水生物的主要辐射可能发生。然而，前湖泊水位没有与现代工具的帮助下，描述古水文条件的模型不存在。我们选择的方法重建的古湖泊的晚更新世至全新世湖泊相的腹足类化石和微体化石，如介形类的帮助下，以测试是否有一个大的淡水湖实际上存在。对现代南部非洲非海洋水生腹足类分类群（其化石存在于古Makgadikgadi湖的沉积物中）进行综合研究，将对其进行遗传学研究，这将有助于检验鱼类生物学家提出的古湖是进化辐射的主要中心的结果。

During the last glacial stage a mega-lake possibly existed in the Kalahari basins, southern Africa, which was potentially as large as extant Lake Victoria. The recent genetic investigations of cichlid fish indicate that this Lake Palaeo-Makgadikgadi may play the key role for understanding the modern biodiversity and biogeography of non-marine aquatic organisms of southern Africa. Geomorphological data indicate the former existence of a closed basin lake, therefore questioning the possibility of freshwater conditions and con-sequently the possibility that major radiations of freshwater organisms could take place. The former lake levels, however, have not been correlated with the aid of modern tools and a model describing palaeohydrological conditions does not exist. We chose the approach of reconstructing the palaeolimnology of the late Pleistocene to Holocene lake phases with the aid of fossil gastropods and microfossils such as ostracodes in order to test whether a large freshwater lake actually existed. Integrated research on modern sou-thern African non-marine aquatic gastropod taxa (the fossils of which exist in sediments of Lake Palaeo-Makgadikgadi) which will be studied genetically, will allow testing the results of fish biologists suggesting the palaeolake was a major centre of evolutionary radiations.