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

该项目旨在更好地了解青藏高原（中国）现有湖泊的年龄和动态。作者就一些湖泊研究了气候、构造和湖泊发育的相互作用；然而，到目前为止，还没有尝试将系统地理学和古环境研究联系起来，以便在更广泛的时空背景下揭示高原湖泊的演变。本文提出这种方法是为了检验关于青藏高原湖泊地质和湖泊历史的不同假设。水生足足动物属是少数分布在高原上的无脊椎动物类群，是新开发的湖泊（如冰川退缩后）的第一批入侵者，是本研究的生物学和古生物学载体。将调查26个湖泊系统中现存的根茎种群和化石壳。这些湖泊系统分布在青藏高原的大部分地区，处于不同的气候和构造环境中。通过使用复杂的分子测年方法，研究人员将开发出一套关于根茎类主要遗传事件的年表，然后将这些数据与高原的地质、湖泊和气候数据联系起来。第二种研究途径是利用地球化学和形态计量学的手段，将基建立为（古）环境的代用物。保存在化石壳中的环境信号将被用于推断过去的水文变化，方法是将化石信号与来自具有良好特征的栖息地的现存腹足类动物的信号进行校准。系统地理学和古环境数据的整合将使我们能够勾勒出具体的湖泊历史，这可以用来产生一个迄今为止可能的更全面的青藏高原图景。

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 ga-stropod 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 biologi-cal 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 pa-leoenvironmental 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.