Morphological stasis in an ongoing gastropod radiation from Lake Malawi.

ABSTRACT: Evolutionary processes leading to adaptive radiation regularly occur too fast to be accurately recorded in the fossil record but too slowly to be readily observed in living biota. The study of evolutionary radiations is thereby confronted with an epistemological gap between the timescales and approaches used by neontologists and paleontologists. Here we report on an ongoing radiation of extant Bellamya species (n = 4) from the African Rift Lake Malawi that provides an unusual opportunity to bridge this gap. The substantial molecular differentiation in this monophyletic Bellamya clade has arisen since Late Pleistocene megadroughts in the Malawi Basin caused by climate change. Morphological time-series analysis of a high-resolution, radiocarbon-dated sequence of 22 faunas spanning the Holoce

SUBMITTER: Van Bocxlaer B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3752226 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature