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Significance Although biodiversity in East Africa is overall extremely high, species richness is not geographically uniform for fishes and mammals. We investigated the biogeographic relevance of past river activity in… Click to show full abstract
Significance Although biodiversity in East Africa is overall extremely high, species richness is not geographically uniform for fishes and mammals. We investigated the biogeographic relevance of past river activity in the Kenya Rift. We show that during a humid period 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, a river system connected currently isolated rift lakes and was partly connected to the Nile. While this river system formed pathways for the dispersal of fishes between lakes, it also acted as a barrier to the range expansion of forest mammals. This fairly recent hydrological connectivity between lakes has been a key driver of modern biodiversity patterns in East Africa. Climate-driven changes in drainage networks on multimillennial timescales are an important hypothesis in biodiversity research.
Journal Title: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Year Published: 2022
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