DIWPA: DIVERSITAS in the Western Pacific and Asia

DIWPA News Letter
Office: Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, JapanMarch2021

No. 44

Message from the Secretary

Message from the chairperson

GeneralShin-ichi Nakano

Atsushi Ishida

DIWPA, the same as you colleagues, has beenadjusting to new ways of working in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The present situation provides
us the opportunities to think how we respondcollectively to this global crisis under the limitationsof face-to-face. In the Fiscal Year 2021, DIWPA isgoing to host two biodiversity researchers: Dr. Luki
Subehi, Research Center for Limnology, LIPI (TheIndonesian Institute of Sciences); Dr. Indranil
Mukherjee, Hydrobiological Institute, Czech
Academy of Sciences. The former researcher uses
BRIDGE Fellowship Program by JSPS. And Dr.
Indranil Mukherjee will be employed as a faculty
member of CER. Dr. Subehi is a researcher forhydro-climatology, ecological processes, freshwater
environments and water quality. We are going todiscuss about the data of water quality profile fromseveral lakes in Indonesia, together with discussions
for a new lake database from more than 5,000 lakes
in Indonesia. Dr. Mukherjee researches ecology and/or biodiversity of protists in limnetic systems. He isinterested in the diversity, seasonal dynamics,bacterivory and selective grazing, and evolution ofimportant groups of flagellated protists mainly from
freshwater lakes and reservoirs, and will initiate
research on those items in Lake Biwa. We DIWPA
are very much looking forward to collaborating withthem, though we are still not sure when theCOVID-19 vaccine will be provided in Indonesia,Czech and/or Japan. May peace, safety, health, joyand happiness prevail on earth.

We have received COVID-19 pandemic in globally.
In Japan, we are in the third wave of COVID-19.
Recently we started the vaccine inoculation in Japan.
I know that many readers have various difficulties
for your research, education and normal life. I have aresearch site in the Ogasawara Islands, located in
1,000 km south of Tokyo. These are oceanic islands,
which have fairly vulnerable for pandemic diseases.
Thus, we could not enter the islands for researchduring several months in the last year. In the present,
we can enter the islands after receiving the PCR test.
According to this situation, the number of visitors
largely decreases in islands. As a result, we face amanpower shortage for forest conservation against
alien trees, and the economic conditions in theislands decrease now. However, it seems that thevegetation recovers gradually especially along to
trekking roads, detecting over tourism in the past.
For the conservation of ecosystems, there are various
trade-offs between economy and nature, and we canoften find such situations under the COVID-19
pandemics. DIWPA newsletter welcomes to reports
from various disciplines, including not only
biodiversity conservation but also transdisciplinary
fields for enhancing sustainability in our life
globally.
We cannot inform about the International Field
Biology Course in 2021 now. The information will
be placed on our website. I appreciate your support
to keep and enhance DIWPA activities.

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DIWPA News Letter No.44

New Site

Lake Baikal and biodiversity studies
Koji Shichi
Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (Japan)

the watershed by drilling in Lake Baikal (Fig. 2) andanalyzing the provided sediments. In the project, I
participated in the research on vegetation history ofthe Lake Baikal region by using the lake sediments.
At present the Lake Baikal watershed is mainly
covered with subarctic coniferous forests “Taiga”.
The northeastern part of Lake Baikal with
distribution of continuous permafrost is widely
covered by pure deciduous larch forests (Larixgmelinii; Fig. 3a). On the other hand, the southwestern

Fig. 1. Lake Baikal and people bathed in the lake

Lake Baikal (Fig. 1) is located at 51-55˚N and 103-109˚Ein the southeast of Siberia in Russia, and is theoldest (approximately 30 million years) and thedeepest (more than 1,600 m) lake in the world. Lake
Baikal is slightly spreading and deepening eventoday because it is placed in the depression of a rift
valley called the Baikal rift zone. Lake Baikal isfamous as the lake which has extremely highbiodiversity. There are many endemic species suchas fishes and amphipods in Lake Baikal. It is said
that more than 80% of all fauna in the lake areendemic species. The Baikal Seal (Phoca sibirica)
which is one of the representative endemic species
is suggested that the ancestor came down from theArctic ocean to the lake approximately 0.4 million
years ago by DNA analysis (Sasaki et al. 2003).
Biodiversity studies of Lake Baikal was largely
developed from 1980s and the endemic species
were discovered successively. In order to pursue
further research, the Baikal Drilling Project (BDP)
was conducted from the beginning of 1990s by
scientist of Russia, the United States, Germany, andJapan. The international joint research aimed toclarify historical change of the biodiversity andinfluence of past climate change on Lake Baikal andpart with distribution of discontinuous or sporadic
permafrost was covered with mixed evergreen
coniferous forests such as pine (Pinus sylvestris andP. sibirica), spruce (Picea obovate), and fir (Abiessibirica; Fig. 3b). We conducted reconstruction of
the past vegetation change over a long period oftime by using fossil pollen (Fig. 4) in the lake
sediments drilled from the center of Lake Baikal inorder to clarify process of establishments of thesubarctic coniferous forests.
The vegetation reconstruction during more than
10 million years showed that the deciduous broadleaved forests such as Quercus and Ulmus were

Fig. 2. Ice-based drilling of Lake Baikal in 1998

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Fig. 3. Typical forest landscape in the Lake Baikal region
(a)

(b)

(a) Deciduous coniferous forest of larch (Larix gmelinii) on a plain of the(b) Evergreen coniferous forest of fir (Abies sibirica) on a mountain area

northeastern partof the southwestern part

predominant during the warm Late Miocene to thePliocene of the Neogene Period in the Lake Baikal
regions, subsequently they gradually declined andthe coniferous forests expanded because of theprevailing glacial (cold) intervals in the Pleistoceneof the Quaternary Period (Hase et al. 2002). The
vegetation changed coniferous forests in interglacial(warm) intervals and sparse cold deserts in glacialintervals during the past 450 ka (450 thousand) years(Shichi et al. 2007; 2009; Fig. 5). The appearance ofrelatively cool interglacial intervals, approximately
310 ka (310 thousand) and 200 ka (200 thousand)years ago. Moreover, coniferous forests temporarily
decreased and birch trees increased in the abrupt
cooling events of approximately 8,200 years ago(Shichi et al. 2013).
It is said that there are many endemic species
which are still unconfirmed in Lake Baikal andrequired to clarify the whole biota in the lake andwatershed. As for past vegetation research, it isnecessary to advance studies on vegetation responseto the past short term climate change that areavailable as analog of the future climate change. It
is difficult to participate the research of Lake Baikal
from overseas at present because it was almost
impossible to take samples for scientific research tooutside of Russia since the mid-2000s. Studies on
the lake sediments are now slightly performed touse samples which had collected before. Recently,
the center for an object of the studies moves to lakesof Mongolia. Additionally, it is possible to researchby using the lake samples which were preserved ina long term in the research institute of Japan.

Larix pollen increased during the interglacial intervals
suggested the coniferous forests including
deciduous larch expand to the southward during

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DIWPA News Letter No.44

References
Hase, Y. et al. 2002. Vegetation history during the past 12
million years based on pollen analysis from sediment coresof Lake Baikal, Russia. Chikyu kankyo 7: 87–101.
Lisiecki, L. E., and Raymo M. E. 2005. A Pliocene-Pleistocene
stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d18O records.
Paleoceanography 20: PA1003.
Sasaki, H., Numachi, K., and Grachev, M. A. 2003. The Origin andGenetic Relationships of the Baikal Seal, Phoca sibirica, byRestriction Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA. Zoological Science
20: 1417–1422.
Shichi, K., Kawamuro, K., Takahara, H., Hase, Y., Maki, T., andMiyoshi, N. 2007. Climate and vegetation changes around
Lake Baikal during the last 350,000 years. Palaeogeography,Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 248: 357–375.
Shichi, K., Takahara, H., and Kawamuro, K. 2009. Vegetation andclimate change during MIS 11 in southeastern Siberia basedon pollen records from Lake Baikal sediment. Japanese
Journal of Palynology 55: 3–14.
Shichi, K.et al. 2013. Vegetation response in the southern Lake
Baikal region to abrupt climate events over the past 33 calkyr. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
375: 70–82.

Fig. 5. Vegetation and climate changes in the Lake Baikal region
during the past 450 ka (450 thousand) years(a) Change in dominant taxa in the Lake Baikal region based onpollen analysis of BDP-96-2 core (Shichi et al. 2007; 2009)
Green, yellow green, and gray bars indicate expansion periods ofevergreen coniferous forests, forests including larch, and sparse cold
deserts respectively.
(b) An average δ18O records of globally distributed benthic foraminifera
in deep ocean floor (LR04 Benthic Stack; Lisiecki and Raymo 2005)
This figure shows an average of deep ocean temperature in the world.
Evergreen coniferous forests expanded in the Lake Baikal region when
the average ocean temperature was high and coniferous forests
including deciduous larch expanded when the temperature wasslightly lower than the warmest period. On the other hand, sparsecold deserts were dominant when the temperature was low.

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from DIWPA Office
DIWPA website has been redesigned.
Enjoy our new website!
https://diwpa.ecology.kyoto-u.ac.jp

DIWPA New Letter is published in PDF
format only on our website to promote
paperless. Thank you very much foryour understanding.

DIWPA OFFICE
Chairperson

Shin-ichi, Nakano

Secretary General

Atsushi Ishida

SecretaryKeisuke Koba Hiroshi Kudo
Shoko Sakai

Center for Ecological Research
Kyoto University509-3, 2-chome, Hirano, Otsu, Shiga 520-2113, JAPANTel : +81-77-549-8238
E-mail : diwpa@ecology.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Shigeo Yachi

http://diwpa.ecology.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

Hiromi Uno
Assistant Secretary Akiko Seki

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DIWPA News Letter No.44