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标题：Neogene hyperaridity in Arabia drove the directions of mammalian dispersal between Africa and Eurasia
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作者：Madelaine Böhme ; Nikolai Spassov ; Mahmoud Reza Majidifard 等
期刊名称：Communications Earth & Environment
电子版ISSN：2662-4435
出版年度：2021
卷号：2
期号：1
页码：1-13
DOI：10.1038/s43247-021-00158-y
语种：English
出版社：Nature Research
摘要：The evolution of the present-day African savannah fauna has been substantially influenced by the dispersal of Eurasian ancestors into Africa. The ancestors evolved endemically, together with the autochthonous taxa, into extant Afrotropical clades during the last 5 million years. However, it is unclear why Eurasian ancestors moved into Africa. Here we use sedimentological observations and soluble salt geochemical analyses of samples from a sedimentary sequence in Western Iran to develop a 10-million-year long proxy record of Arabian climate. We identify transient periods of Arabian hyperaridity centred 8.75, 7.78, 7.50 and 6.25 million years ago, out-of-phase with Northern African aridity. We propose that this relationship promoted unidirectional mammalian dispersals into Africa. This was followed by a sustained hyperarid period between 5.6 and 3.3 million years ago which impeded dispersals and allowed African mammalian faunas to endemically diversify into present-day clades. After this, the mid-Piacenzian warmth enabled bi-directional fauna exchange between Africa and Eurasia, which continued during the Pleistocene. Transient periods of hyperaridity in northern Arabia during the late Miocene were out of phase with those in North Africa and may have promoted unidirectional dispersal of Eurasian mammals into Africa, according to analyses of a sedimentary sequence in western Iran.