基于陆生和水生无脊椎代表动物对古地中海消失和生物多样性中心转移的研究

The Tethys experienced dramatic changes from dominating the equatorial world to vanishing during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which have reshaped the life distribution. The modern biodiversity hotspots mainly exist in ancient Tethyan region and are commonly associated with geological history. The fossil evidence revealed that marine biodiversity hotspots had moved from Mediterranean to Indo-West Pacific. The current project is aimed to test this hypothesis with extant species. We seeks to understand how Tethyan changes influence the diversification of species and phenotypes and how, in turn, animals adapt to ecological changes. We address these questions using a combination of fieldwork, morphological taxonomy, molecular systematics, and phylogenomics. Our project uses spiders and Amphipoda as reprehensive of terrestrial and water-living (freshwater and saline water) animals, respectively, to compare their difference in adaptation and evolution. This project will evaluate the extant diversification patterns to confirm the biodiversity hotspot shifts from Mediterranean to Indo-West Pacific.

古地中海也叫特提斯海, 是劳亚古陆和冈瓦纳古陆间长期存在的古海洋。古地中海面积非常大，覆盖了加勒比海、大西洋、地中海、印度洋和西北太平洋部分地区。在第三纪由于板块运动形成了阿尔卑斯-喜马拉雅山系，导致古地中海逐渐退缩，甚至在盐度危机时消失。古地中海长达6500万年横跨地球赤道的剧烈变迁重塑了全球生物多样性的分布格局，化石资料证实古地中海变迁使生物多样性中心从地中海地区转移到印度-太平洋地区。本项申请将从现生生物的角度验证这一假说。以无脊椎动物代表类群蜘蛛目和甲壳动物端足目钩虾为研究材料，探讨古地中海变迁对陆生动物和水生动物的多样性分布格局的影响，以及动物如何适应古地中海变迁。研究中强调结合野外调查、形态分类、分子系统学以及系统基因组学等多种方法，比较陆生和水生动物对古地中海变迁的不同适应机制，评估现生生物多样性中心是否与化石研究一致，存在自西向东从地中海向印度-太平洋的转移。

本项目通过探讨古地中海消失过程中陆生动物蜘蛛和水生动物钩虾的演化过程和物种多样性分化进程，解析不同动物类群对地质变迁的适应性及全球生物多样性中心转移机制。本项目顺利完成目标，证实中国西南地区是很多生物类群的演化中心。项目执行期间，项目主持人在Systematic Biology, Global Change Biology, Biological Reviews 等刊物共发表科研论文132篇, 其中SCI论文109篇， 有正式标注的SCI论文近80篇。项目组12位研究生顺利获得博士或硕士学位， 包括来自意大利，马来西亚和肯尼亚的博士或硕士研究生。在新加坡，塞尔维亚等10个国家开展国家合作研究。