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Relationship between the shell geochemistry of the modern aquatic gastropod Radix and water chemistry of lakes of the Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Fossil shells of the aquatic mollusk Radix are common in the exposed sediments of lake terraces on the Tibetan Plateau. However, the living environment of Radix, and the geochemical characteristics of its shells, is unclear. Here, we report the results of an investigation of the occurrence of modern Radix in lakes of the southeastern and central Tibetan Plateau, as well as measurements of various geochemical characteristics of the shells. The results indicate that the nutritional status of the lake waters is the main limiting factor for the survival of Radix in these lakes. The Sr/Ca ratio of the Radix shells is significantly positively correlated with both the Sr/Ca ratio and the conductivity of the lake water. Initially, Kd Sr decreases rapidly with low values of Sr/Cawater; however, in the case of Sr/Cawater values above 0.0076, Kd Sr exhibits only a small range of variation. The δ 13Cshell values are controlled by the δ 13C of lake water dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). In addition, the contribution of DIC of organic origin to the Radix shells increases when the lake water is deficient in DIC of inorganic origin. The δ 18O values of the Radix shells provide useful information about the isotopic composition of the ambient waters.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to express our thanks to Yue-Ying Liu, Zhi-Guo Su, Shao-Peng Gao, Dong-Mei Qu, and Xiao-Ming Liu for their help with the laboratory analyses; Junbo Wang and Lei Huang for their part assistance during field sampling; and Ruimin Yang for her help in plotting the location graph. We thank Dr. Jan Bloemendal for linguistic improvements. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments. This study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2012CB956101) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZCX2-EW-113).

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Chen, F., Feng, JL. & Hu, HP. Relationship between the shell geochemistry of the modern aquatic gastropod Radix and water chemistry of lakes of the Tibetan Plateau. Hydrobiologia 771, 239–254 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-015-2634-1

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