TY  - JOUR
A1  - Böhme, Madelaine
A1  - Spassov, Nikolai
A1  - Majidifard, Mahmoud Reza
A1  - Gärtner, Andreas
A1  - Kirscher, Uwe
A1  - Marks, Michael
A1  - Dietzel, Christian
A1  - Uhlig, Gregor
A1  - El Atfy, Haytham
A1  - Begun, David R.
A1  - Winklhofer, Michael
T1  - Neogene hyperaridity in Arabia drove the directions of mammalian dispersal between Africa and Eurasia
Y1  - 2021-05-18
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
JF  - Communications Earth & Environment
DO  - 10.1038/s43247-021-00158-y
PB  - Nature Publishing Group UK
N2  - 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.
N2  - 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.
UR  - http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gldocs-11858/11113
ER  -