Comparative phylogeography and evolutionary history of schizothoracine fishes in the Changtang Plateau and their implications for the lake level and Pleistocene climate fluctuations

Abstract

The water level oscillation of endorheic lakes and extent change of glaciers associated with the Asian monsoon are known as prominent representatives of climatic and environmental events in the Tibetan Plateau during the Quaternary. However, details process in spatial and temporal changes are still debated. We use the schizothoracines as a palaeoclimatic proxy to test two hypotheses concerning the evolution of Quaternary glaciations and lakes of the Changtang Plateau: (1) the Tibetan glaciations generally tended to decrease since the middle Pleistocene; (2) the lakes expansion was driven by summer monsoon rainfall. Based on a wide range‐wide sampling throughout in the Changtang Plateau and its adjacent drainages, we constructed phylogeny and demographic histories of schizothoracines in the Changtang Plateau. Our results showed that the populations of the exorheic rivers and lakes in southern Tibet possessed higher genetic variability, earlier coalescent and expansion times than those of the endorheic lakes in the Changtang Plateau. Population expansions are highly consistent with phases of strong summer monsoon and high lake level during interglacial stages. The maximum growth rate intervals showed three pulses from 64.7 to 54.8, 39.6 to 31.0, and 14.9 to 2.4 kya respectively. The significant positive correlations were found between regional precipitation and genetic diversity, as well as coalescence time of populations in the endorheic lakes. We suggested that the demographic history of the schizothoracines reflects the spatial and temporal changes in climate and lake level, in particular, in regional precipitation gradients associated with changes of the South Asian monsoon, and supports the climatic hypothesis of a general diminishing tend in Tibetan glaciations in the Tibetan Plateau since the middle Pleistocene.

Phylogeographic studies of schizothoracine fishes on the central Qinghai-Tibet Plateau reveal the highest known glacial microrefugia

“…A similar demographic history was also suggested by He et al . 33 . The SDM also demonstrated that while most suitable habitats disappeared on the Qiangtang Plateau during the LGM, the Siling Co area showed a certain degree of suitability for those five taxa to live (Fig.…”

multi‐dice: r package for comparative population genomic inference under hierarchical co‐demographic models of independent single‐population size changes

“…Population genetics has experienced an increasing interest in quantifying shared and idiosyncratic attributes across demographic histories from multiple independent taxa to address questions regarding wide‐scale biogeographic, ecological and evolutionary responses to climate and landscape changes, an endeavour commonly referred as comparative phylogeography (Arbogast & Kenagy, ; Avise, ; Hewitt, , ; Hickerson et al., ; Papadopoulou & Knowles, ; Taberlet, Fumagalli, Wust‐Saucy, & Cosson, ). These comparative studies can be especially informative about how key environmental and organismal features (Carnaval, Hickerson, Haddad, Rodrigues, & Moritz, ; Carstens, Gruenstaeudl, & Reid, ; Fouquet et al., ; He et al., ; Kautt, Machado‐Schiaffino, & Meyer, ; Luo et al., ; Nadachowska‐Brzyska, Li, Smeds, Zhang, & Ellegren, ; Papadopoulou & Knowles, ; Qu et al., ; Rougemont et al., ; Smith et al., ; Stone et al., ; Wood et al., ) and selective forces (Boyko et al., ; Frantz et al., ; Gignoux, Henn, & Mountain, ; Hohenlohe et al., ; Poh, Domingues, Hoekstra, & Jensen, ; Rougeux, Bernatchez, & Gagnaire, ) affect patterns of shared and idiosyncratic histories. One approach in such investigations is to exploit multi‐taxa genetic data for comparative demographic inference under a hierarchical model, whereby hyperparameters govern the variability of a certain demographic parameter across taxa, while all other nuisance demographic parameters freely vary per each taxon (Beaumont, ; Hickerson, Dolman, & Moritz, ).…”

Reviews and syntheses: How do abiotic and biotic processes respond to climatic variations at the Nam Co catchment (Tibetan Plateau)?

“…from Nam Co and the surrounding lakes, compared with more distant parts of the TP (He et al, 2016). In contrast, due to a vector-mediated passive dispersal across large areas, other aquatic taxa such as freshwater snails seem to be less influenced by drainage histories (Oheimb et al, 2011).…”

“…In general, the ecoregion can serve as a proxy for community-and species-level biodiversity, which best describe communities of mammals, birds and plants (Smith et al, 2018). The TP forms a distinctive zoographical region, characterized by fauna that is adapted to high altitudes, drought, low temperatures and low oxygen levels (He et al, 2016). Certainly, the TP harbors also many unique lineages of other organisms, with higher endemism of low dispersal species (Yang et al, 2009;Clewing et al, 2016).…”