Mollusc biodiversity in late Holocene nearshore environments of the Caspian Sea

Mollusc biodiversity in late Holocene nearshore environments of the Caspian Sea: A baseline for the current biodiversity crisis

van de Velde, Sabrina (Naturalis Biodiversity Center)
Wesselingh, Frank P. (Naturalis Biodiversity Center)
Yanina, Tamara A. (Moscow State University)
Anistratenko, Vitaliy V. (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine)
Neubauer, Thomas A. (Naturalis Biodiversity Center; Justus Liebig University Giessen)
ter Poorten, Jan Johan (Field Museum of Natural History)
Vonhof, Hubert B. (Max Planck Institute of Chemistry)
Kroonenberg, S.B. (TU Delft Applied Geology)

2019-12-01

The Caspian Sea is an evolutionary island whose rich and endemic fauna have evolved in partial isolation over the past two million years. Baseline studies of pre-20^th Century communities are needed in order to assess the severity of the current Caspian biodiversity crisis, which mostly involves invasive species. An inventory of late Holocene shelly assemblages (c. 2000–2500 cal yr BP) from outcrops in and around Great Turali Lake (Dagestan, Russia) shows a diverse nearshore community consisting of 24 endemic Caspian species, two invasive species and two Caspian native species that lived in a shallow embayment with mesohaline salinities of circa 5–13 psu (parts per thousands). This pre-crisis Holocene Caspian mollusc community serves as a baseline against which modern mollusc diversity measurements can be evaluated. Examination of faunas from similar environments living today and in the past illustrates the dramatic changes in nearshore communities during the 20^th Century. Our study identifies a habitat that may have served as a refuge, but that is currently under threat from invasive species. The severity of the Caspian biodiversity crisis is comparable with other well-known biodiversity crises in semi-isolated ecosystems such as the cichlid fish communities of Lake Victoria, Africa.

Biodiversity crisis
Endemic species
Invasive species
Mollusc assemblages
Pontocaspian biota

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6f623748-a671-4a36-8c81-e0d57ff7d820

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.109364

0031-0182

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 535

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2019 Sabrina van de Velde, Frank P. Wesselingh, Tamara A. Yanina, Vitaliy V. Anistratenko, Thomas A. Neubauer, Jan Johan ter Poorten, Hubert B. Vonhof, S.B. Kroonenberg