Project Info

There is now strong evidence for links between tectonic uplift (and thus landscape evolution) and evolution of life at the Earth’s surface. Examples include the distribution of micro-endemism in the lemur population in Madagascar (Horvarth et al, 2008), or the evolution of biodiversity in the Amazon Basin in relation to uplift in the Andes (Horne et al, 2010). Although much advances have been made in modelling landscape evolution or speciation in response to external forcings (mostly climate), no model exists that couples both approaches and can predict the evolution of life on an evolving landscape. During the first stage of the CRC-1211, large datasets have been gathered on tectonic uplift of the Andes, the resulting landscape evolution and climatic response and the evolution of the biota in the Atacama Desert. Although the data and its interpretation are now being published, few attempts have been made so far at quantifying the links that exist between these different parts of the Earth System and how they have co-evolved over the past 20 Myrs. We propose to synthesize these results by further developing and using a new speciation model that we have coupled to a landscape evolution model.

In this project, we plan to calibrate the models for the specific arid environment of the Atacama Desert and the biota it hosts. We will then perform a series of generic model experiments to assess the behaviour of the coupled model and its response to tectonic and climatic forcings. We will then use the information gained in this process to model more specifically the evolution of organisms (plants, insects, fish, etc.) for which data has been collected in the first stage of CRC-1211. For this, we will use constraints on the climate and tectonics of the Atacama region and its evolution on recent geological time scales compiled by other research groups in the CRC. We will ultimately use the model to investigate the complex links between the evolution of landforms and life at the global scale. The development of the model will also be focused on making it easy to use by non-specialists, and we will devote efforts to promote its use by researchers in other projects of the CRC.