Molecular phylogeny of mega-diverse Carabus attests late Miocene evolution of alpine environments in the Himalayan-Tibetan Orogen

Abstract

The timing, sequence, and scale of uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan Orogen (HTO) are controversially debated. Many geoscientific studies assume paleoelevations close to present-day elevations and the existence of alpine environments across the HTO already in the late Paleogene, contradicting fossil data. Using molecular genetic data of ground beetles we reconstruct the paleoenvironmental history of the HTO, focusing on its southern margin (Himalayas, South Tibet). Based on a comprehensive sampling of extratropical Carabus, and ~ 10,000 bp of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA we applied Bayesian and Maximum likelihood phylogenetics. We show that Carabus arrived in the HTO at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary. During the early Miocene, five lineages diversified in different parts of the HTO, initially in its southern center and on its eastern margin. Evolution of subalpine-alpine taxa occurred during the late Miocene. There were apparently no habitats for Carabus before the late Oligocene. Until the Late Oligocene elevations must have been low throughout the HTO. Temperate forests emerged in South Tibet in the late Oligocene at the earliest. Alpine environments developed in the HTO from the late Miocene and, in large scale, during the Pliocene-Quaternary. Findings are consistent with fossil records but contrast with uplift models recovered from stable isotope paleoaltimetry.

Exploring Paleogene Tibet's warm temperate environments through target enrichment and phylogenetic niche modelling of Himalayan spiny frogs (Paini, Dicroglossidae)

“…In this study, we provide the first genomic data-based, timecalibrated phylogeny of spiny frogs distributed across the HTO, as well as biogeographic and niche models to reconstruct the evolutionary history of that group against the background of a recent paleoenvironmental scenario for the HTO (Schmidt et al, 2023). We also acknowledge that our sampling of spiny frog clades is not comprehensive.…”

“…Almost the same age (29 Ma) has been observed in the forest-dwelling amphibian genus Scutiger of the HTO (Hofmann et al, 2017), and a slightly younger age (ca. 27 Ma) has been shown for the ancient Himalayan ground beetles Carabus and Pterostichus (Schmidt et al, 2012(Schmidt et al, , 2023. , indicating the emergence of high-altitude habitats not before the very late Miocene or Miocene-Pliocene boundary.…”

“…Ancestral range estimations (ARE) were performed with the R package BioGeoBEARS (Matzke, 2013) through common biogeographical models under the recent paleoenvironmental scenario of the HTO, according to Schmidt et al (2012Schmidt et al ( , 2023. This scenario was implemented by a constrained adjacency and biome-dependent dispersal matrix at certain time slices (see Supplementary Information Text, Figure S5 and Tables S2-S4).…”

“…Despite these limitations, no fossils have been unearthed to substantiate the existence of cold temperate or alpine environments in the central and southern HTO during the Paleogene, thereby raising questions about the findings from stable isotope paleoaltimetry (Schmidt et al, 2023).…”

Museomics ofCarabusgiant ground beetles shows an Oligocene origin andin situAlpine diversification

“…14 Ma, Deuve et al 2012) to the early Oligocene (ca. 30 Ma, Schmidt et al 2023). No major improvement in our understanding of Arcifera systematics and evolution has been achieved in the past decade and there is a need to infer a robust evolutionary tree for this section of Carabus to better understand the morphological, ecological, and geographical evolution of constituent lineages.…”