香港大学Skye Yunshu Tian等研究人员合作揭示热带海洋生物多样性热点地区的新生代历史。这一研究成果于2024年6月26日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然》上。

研究人员利用一个全面的化石数据集，通过推断物种灭绝动态，高分辨率地重建了印澳群岛（IAA）新生代的多样性历史。研究人员发现，自约2500万年前以来，IAA呈现出单向多样性趋势，大致呈对数增长，直到约260万年前开始出现多样性高原。多样性的增长主要受多样性依赖性和栖息地大小的控制，1390万年前后热应力的缓解也促进了多样性的增长。在大约2500万年前、2000万年前、1600万年前、1200万年前和500万年前，记录到了不同的净多样化高峰，这可能与重大构造事件以及气候转变有关。

关键的生物地理过程对IAA多样性产生了深远的影响，这表现在Tethyan后裔的长期衰退与世界性和IAA类群的兴盛之间。最后，没有大灭绝和新生代的冷却似乎是IAA成为地球上海洋生物多样性最丰富的热点地区的关键。

研究人员表示，地球上海洋生物多样性最高的地区被称为珊瑚三角区或IAA。其巨大的生物多样性长期以来一直吸引着生物学家的兴趣；然而，人们对IAA生物多样性热点地区的详细演化历史仍然知之甚少。

附：英文原文

Title: Cenozoic history of the tropical marine biodiversity hotspot

Author: Tian, Skye Yunshu, Yasuhara, Moriaki, Condamine, Fabien L., Huang, Huai-Hsuan M., Fernando, Allan Gil S., Aguilar, Yolanda M., Pandita, Hita, Irizuki, Toshiaki, Iwatani, Hokuto, Shin, Caren P., Renema, Willem, Kase, Tomoki

Issue&Volume: 2024-06-26

Abstract: The region with the highest marine biodiversity on our planet is known as the Coral Triangle or Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA)1,2. Its enormous biodiversity has long attracted the interest of biologists; however, the detailed evolutionary history of the IAA biodiversity hotspot remains poorly understood3. Here we present a high-resolution reconstruction of the Cenozoic diversity history of the IAA by inferring speciation–extinction dynamics using a comprehensive fossil dataset. We found that the IAA has exhibited a unidirectional diversification trend since about 25 million years ago, following a roughly logistic increase until a diversity plateau beginning about 2.6million years ago. The growth of diversity was primarily controlled by diversity dependency and habitat size, and also facilitated by the alleviation of thermal stress after 13.9million years ago. Distinct net diversification peaks were recorded at about 25, 20, 16, 12 and 5million years ago, which were probably related to major tectonic events in addition to climate transitions. Key biogeographic processes had far-reaching effects on the IAA diversity as shown by the long-term waning of the Tethyan descendants versus the waxing of cosmopolitan and IAA taxa. Finally, it seems that the absence of major extinctions and the Cenozoic cooling have been essential in making the IAA the richest marine biodiversity hotspot on Earth.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07617-4

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07617-4