Journal article

Publication year: 2011

Pages: 130-143

Journal: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

Volume number: 102

Issue number: 1

ISSN: 0024-4066

Open access status: Bronze

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01574.x

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Abstract: 
Changes in habitat stability may significantly shape evolutionary patterns and processes in ancient lakes. In the present study, we use a hierarchical combination of molecular phylogenetic and coalescent approaches to investigate the evolutionary history of the endemic species of the gastropod genus Bellamya in the African rift-lake Malawi. By integrating our findings with reported palaeontological and palaeolimnological data, we demonstrate that all but one evolutionary lineage of the Pliocene Bellamya fauna in Lake Malawi became extinct. Coalescent analyses indicate that the modern radiation underwent both a sudden demographic and a spatial expansion after a genetic bottleneck. We argue that a reflooding of the lake after severe Pleistocene low stands offers a straightforward explanation for this pattern and may have triggered speciation processes in the modern endemic Bellamya radiation in Lake Malawi. (c) 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 102, 130-143.

Harvard Citation style: Schultheiß, R., Wilke, T., Jorgensen, A. and Albrecht, C. (2011) The birth of an endemic species flock: demographic history of the Bellamya group (Gastropoda, Viviparidae) in Lake Malawi, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 102(1), pp. 130-143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01574.x

APA Citation style: Schultheiß, R., Wilke, T., Jorgensen, A., & Albrecht, C. (2011). The birth of an endemic species flock: demographic history of the Bellamya group (Gastropoda, Viviparidae) in Lake Malawi. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 102(1), 130-143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2010.01574.x