Decoding the drivers of deep-time wetland biodiversity: insights from an early Permian tropical lake ecosystem

Wetlands are important to continental evolution, providing both the arenas and refugia for emerging and declining biotas, respectively. Based on this significance and the high preservation potential, the resulting fossiliferous deposits play a key role in understanding past and future biodiversity. We reconstruct the trophic structure and age of the early Permian Manebach-Lake ecosystem, Germany, thriving in a wetland when the tropical biosphere faced profound upheaval in the peaking Late Palaeozoic Icehouse. Nine excavations, the high-resolution, spatiotemporal documentation of fossils and sediments, and the U-Pb radioisotopic dating of tuffs allow us to distinguish autogenic and allogenic factors that shaped the limnic biocoenosis. The Manebach Lake was an exorheic, stratified, perennial water body in the 101–102 km2 scale, integrated into the catchment draining much of the European Variscides. Lake formation paralleled an Asselian regional wet climatic interval and benefited from ris..., ,