Paleobiology of the Neogene Malacofauna of the African Rift Basins and implications for the evolutionary theory

The African Rift lakes are called 'living laboratories of evolution'. Fine resolution freshwater mollusc sequences were recovered from three African rift basins. Although their paleoecosystems had a lot of characteristics in common, evolution of their malacofaunas happened differently. Paleoecological knowledge of these basins has the last decennia increased. Explaining the observed differences in tempo and mode of evolution becomes therefore possible.