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Origin and Diversification of Freshwater Fishes in Lake Biwa

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Biodiversity in Aquatic Systems and Environments

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Biology ((BRIEFSBIOL))

Abstract

Lake Biwa is the largest and oldest lake in Japan. It harbors more than a thousand animal and plant species, including 67 indigenous freshwater fish species/subspecies with 16 endemic or semi-endemic forms. Paleogeographical and paleontological studies have revealed that the location and environment of the lake have changed during its history of more than four million years. The current Lake Biwa, with its unique environments, was established 0.4 million years ago. Endemic fishes in Lake Biwa are traditionally divided into old “relict species” and new “species that evolved in the lake,” the latter being assumed to have evolved through ecological adaptations to the present lake environment. However, recent molecular phylogenetic/population genetic analyses have revealed that many of the “species that evolved in the lake” have origins that are older than the present Lake Biwa, while other species likely evolved in the present environment through ecological adaptation. On the other hand, many fish populations that inhabit Lake Biwa, irrespective of their origin, show similar patterns involving recent population expansions that occurred several tens of thousands of years ago. Extensive community level analyses of “lacustrine syndromes” that are found in Lake Biwa are necessary based on morphology, physiology, phylogenetics, population genetics, and also new “omics” approaches.

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Acknowledgments

I express my sincere thanks to Noboru Okuda for providing me the opportunity to write this review. I also thank Takefumi Komiya, Ryoichi Tabata, Ryo Kakioka, Koji Tominaga, and Shigefumi Kanao for providing information on the results of their studies, which will be published in the near future and will enhance this incomplete review on the origin of Lake Biwa endemics. Kohji Mabuchi provided constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript. This study was supported in part by the Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (nos. 18570086, 21370035, and “Formation of a Strategic Base for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Research: from Genome to Ecosystem” of the GCOE) and the WEC Research Fund for Ecology and Civil Engineering (2009-6).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Japan

    Noboru Okuda & Shin-ichi Nakano

  2. Department of Zoology Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Katsutoshi Watanabe

  3. Section of Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Kayoko Fukumori

  4. Department of Life Sciences The College of Biosciences and Biotechnology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

    Takefumi Nakazawa

Authors
  1. Noboru Okuda
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  2. Katsutoshi Watanabe
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  4. Shin-ichi Nakano
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  5. Takefumi Nakazawa
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Okuda, N., Watanabe, K., Fukumori, K., Nakano, Si., Nakazawa, T. (2014). Origin and Diversification of Freshwater Fishes in Lake Biwa. In: Biodiversity in Aquatic Systems and Environments. SpringerBriefs in Biology. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54150-9_1

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