For the first time a palaeobiogeographic framework is proposed for European Neogene freshwater systems. The distribution of 2226 species-group taxa of freshwater gastropods from over 2700 Miocene and Pliocene localities was evaluated. The localities were grouped into palaeo-freshwater systems based on latest palaeogeographic reconstructions. Cluster analyses were computed for four time slices, i.e., Early Miocene, Middle Miocene, Late Miocene, and Pliocene. The analyses demonstrate a generally high degree of provincialism for the Neogene freshwater systems and allow the definition of biogeographic units. The delimitations are based on the cluster analyses, the degree of endemicity, and geographical coherence. The Early Miocene is characterised by a relatively low degree of provincialism suggesting the distinction of three regions. Coinciding with the development of many endemic systems on the Dinarian-Anatolian Island and in central Europe, the Middle Miocene demonstrates a higher degree of provincialism, allowing the definition of six biogeographic regions. With the onset of the Late Miocene the retreat of the Central Paratethys and development of the huge Lake Pannon massively shaped faunal evolution and palaeobiogeography in general. The formation of the 'Lago-mare' environment fringing the Mediterranean Basin as well as the development of several restricted freshwater systems in western Europe additionally promoted biogeographic division. The increasing provincialism allowed the delimitation of six biogeographic regions, three of which could be subdivided into seven dominions. With the disappearance of Lake Pannon and the decline of western European and Mediterranean faunas at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary, biodiversity hotspots shifted towards eastern and southeastern Europe. For the Pliocene, four biogeographic regions, five dominions, and four provinces were defined. Most of the here proposed biogeographic units and faunal differences are governed by the varied existence of large, long-lived systems. Because of their prolonged duration they immensely influenced the community composition on the family level, differences of the relative species richnesses per biogeographic region, and the rising rate of endemicity. The underlying mechanism for this pattern is the ongoing continentalization of Europe triggered by the Alpidic orogenesis and the simultaneous retreat of the Paratethys Sea. The continuing restriction of this huge intracontinental sea from the Mediterranean promoted the evolution of endemic freshwater faunas. The arising long-lived systems like Lake Pannon, Lake Dacia or Lake Slavonia persisted over several millions of years and stimulated the evolution of highly diverse and endemic faunas.

In order to assess how the last sea level rise affected the Aegean archipelago, we quantified the magnitude and rate of geographic change for the Aegean islands during the last sea-level-rise episode (21 kyr BP-present) with a spatially explicit geophysical model. An island-specific Area-Distance-Change (ADC) typology was constructed, with higher ADC values representing a higher degree of change. The highest fragmentation rates of the Aegean archipelago occurred in tandem with the largest rates of sea-level-rise occurring between 17 kyr and 7 kyr ago. Sea-level rise resulted in an area loss for the Aegean archipelago of approximately 70%. Spatiotemporal differences in sea-level changes across the Aegean Sea and irregular bathymetry produced a variety of island surface-area loss responses, with area losses ranging from 20% to N90% per island. In addition, sea-level rise led to increased island isolation, increasing distances of islands to continents to N200% for some islands. We discuss how rates of area contractions and distance increases may have affected biotas, their evolutionary history and genetics. Five testable hypotheses are proposed to guide future research. We hypothesize that islands with higher ADC-values will exhibit higher degrees of community hyper-saturation, more local extinctions, larger genetic bottlenecks, higher genetic diversity within species pools, more endemics and shared species on continental fragments and higher z-values of the power-law species-area relationship. The developed typology and the quantified geographic response to sea-level rise of continental islands, as in the Aegean Sea, present an ideal research framework to test biogeographic and evolutionary hypotheses assessing the role of rates of area and distance change affecting biota.

Aim The Aegean Archipelago has been the focal research area for identifying and testing several ecological and evolutionary patterns, yet its biogeographical subdivision has been somewhat overlooked, with the processes driving the assembly of the Aegean island plant communities still remaining largely unclear. To bridge this gap, we identify the biogeographical modules (highly linked subgroups of islands and plant taxa) within the Aegean Archipelago.Location The Aegean Archipelago, Greece. MethodsWe used a network approach to detect island biogeographical roles and modules, based on a large and detailed database including 1498 Aegean endemic and subendemic plant taxa distributed on 59 Aegean Islands and five adjacent mainland areas. ResultsThe Aegean was divided into six biogeographical modules; the network was significantly modular. None of the modules displayed all four possible biogeographical roles (connectors, module hubs, network hubs, peripherals). Six new biogeographical regions in the Aegean were identified.Main conclusions The borders of the six biogeographical regions in the Aegean correspond well to the region's palaeogeographical evolution from the middle Miocene to the end of the Pleistocene. The Central Aegean acts as an ecogeographical filter for the distribution of several plant lineages across the Aegean Sea, while there seems to be a N-S-oriented biogeographical barrier in the Aegean corresponding to the palaeogeographical situation during the middle Ionian. These biogeographical barriers have been fundamental for both plants and animals.

Continental aquatic species richness hotspots are unevenly distributed across the planet. In present-day Europe, only two centers of biodiversity exist (Lake Ohrid on the Balkans and the Caspian Sea). During the Neogene, a wide variety of hotspots developed in a series of long-lived lakes. The mechanisms underlying the presence of richness hotspots in different geological periods have not been properly examined thus far. Based on Miocene to Recent gastropod distributions, we show that the existence and evolution of such hotspots in inland-water systems are tightly linked to the geodynamic history of the European continent. Both past and present hotspots are related to the formation and persistence of long-lived lake systems in geological basins or to isolation of existing inland basins and embayments from the marine realm. The faunal evolution within hotspots highly depends on warm climates and surface area. During the Quaternary icehouse climate and extensive glaciations, limnic biodiversity sustained a severe decline across the continent and most former hotspots disappeared. The Recent gastropod distribution is mainly a geologically young pattern formed after the Last Glacial Maximum (19 ky) and subsequent formation of postglacial lakes. The major hotspots today are related to long-lived lakes in preglacially formed, permanently subsiding geological basins.biogeography | hotspot evolution | freshwater gastropods | Cenozoic | species-area relationship

No abstract

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Table S1 List of samples including species names, GenBank accession numbers, applicability for the different datasets and source of the current and downloaded sequences used in the study. Species Accession COI dataset LYS dataset LYS Network Source D. setosum KX600495 ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817839 ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817840 ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817841 ✚ Current study A. radiata AY012750 ✚ Lessios et al. E. diadema AY012753 ✚ Lessios et al. D. africanum AY012728 ✚ Lessios et al. D. africanum AY012729 ✚ Lessios et al. D. antillarum AY012730 ✚ Lessios et al. D. antillarum AY012731 ✚ Lessios et al. D. palmeri AY012736 ✚ Lessios et al. D. mexicanum AY012734 ✚ Lessios et al. D. mexicanum AY012735 ✚ Lessios et al. D. paucispinum AY012738 ✚ Lessios et al. D. paucispinum AY012739 ✚ Lessios et al. D. paucispinum AY012740 ✚ Lessios et al. D. paucispinum AY012741 ✚ Lessios et al. D. setosum AY012732 ✚ Lessios et al. D. setosum AY012733 ✚ Lessios et al. D. setosum AY012746 ✚ Lessios et al. D. setosum AY012747 ✚ Lessios et al. D. setosum LC037357 ✚ Chow et al. 2016 D. setosum LC037356 ✚ Chow et al. 2016 D. setosum LC037355 ✚ Chow et al. 2016 D. setosum AB909922 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909923 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909924 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909925 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909926 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909927 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909928 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909929 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909930 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. setosum AB909931 ✚ Chow et al. 2014 D. clarki AY012744 ✚ Lessios et al. Species Accession COI dataset LYS dataset LYS Network Source D. clarki AY012745 ✚ Lessios et al. 2001 D. clarki AB909932 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909933 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909934 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909935 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909936 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909937 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909938 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909939 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909940 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909941 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909942 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909943 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909944 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909945 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909946 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909947 ✚ Chow et al. D. clarki AB909948 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909949 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909950 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909951 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909952 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909953 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909954 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909955 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909956 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AB909957 ✚ Chow et al. D. savignyi AY012742 ✚ Lessios et al. 2001 D. savignyi AY012743 ✚ Lessios et al. 2001 D. setosum KX600494 ✚ ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817842 ✚ ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817843 ✚ ✚ Current study D. setosum KY817844 ✚ ✚ Current study A. radiata AY013238 ✚

The extent of home ranges of griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) was studied on Crete (Greece) during 2005–2015 by monitoring 27 individuals with very high frequency radio‐telemetry. Radio‐tagged birds were followed for an average period of 13.1 months (n = 7–22), where a total of 1615 days of fieldwork produced 4420 radiolocations (x = 163.5 radiolocations per tagged bird, n = 142–328). Overall, the mean home range and mean core area of griffon vultures were estimated at 1560 ± 140 km2 (KDE 95%) and 373 ± 36 km2 (KDE 50%) respectively with significant age‐related differences within seasons. Immature griffon vultures ranged on average about double the area ranged by adults in winter and occupied significantly larger core areas. The home range overlap in per cent and utilization distribution between adult and immature birds was also significantly less in winter than in summer. Foraging griffon vultures avoided northern slopes with unfavourable flight conditions and selected sites within rangelands with low diurnal temperature variations where overwintering livestock and suitable nesting cliffs occur. Foraging adults were restricted to the vicinity of the breeding colonies and favoured sites away from urban zones. In contrast, immature griffon vultures selected pastoral zones in marginal areas with mild winters and rugged terrain. The existence of predictable food sources in combination with suitable roosting sites and favourable flight conditions were the main factors differentiating the space‐use pattern between the two age classes. We recommend that apart from the maintenance of traditional farming practices, sites, such as large communal roosts and flight corridors or entire ‘hotspot’ activity zones of immature birds, should be taken into account in conservation planning and sensitivity mapping for the species.