Abstract At the land surface, the availability of water controls the evolution of life as well as the morphological development. It is currently hardly known how far both evolutionary processes interact in water-limited environments. While it is well considered that biotic processes contribute to weathering and therewith also prepare the landscape for erosion, little is known to what degree different landforms form barriers and corridors of life across geological time scales. Here, we present an example of how to tackle this complex interplay of biology and landscape evolution by introducing the Collaborative Research Centre CRC 1211 ‘Earth – Evolution at the dry limit’. A CRC is a German Research Foundation funding program, bringing together scientists from different disciplines to tackle jointly complex emergent research questions for up to twelve years. The CRC 1211 focuses on the arid cores of the Atacama Desert and the Namib Desert. Main objective is to disentangle how the shaping of land-surfaces by past episodes of wetter climate coevolved with the evolution of life. It is hypothesized that aridity was interrupted by punctuated wetter periods, which left fingerprints in surface processes and the radiation of the biota, with climatic thresholds beyond which biota could adapt to and influence landscape development. Specific desert landscape elements such as soil surface crusts, desiccation cracks and subsoil water potentially form underexplored refugia of life at particular sites, while old channels and alluvial fan systems potentially structure its dispersal at small to intermediate scales ( 10,000 km2) gradients in surface processes and biodiversity, likely controlled by the intensity and duration of fog or rainfall. To substantiate these hypotheses we combine expertise from the fields of population and (phylo-) genetics, molecular biology, biogeography, ecology, soil sciences, Earth-surface sciences, geomorphology, meteorology, (paleo-) climatology, (isotope-) geochemistry and physical dating to discover and evaluate the trajectories and thresholds of the evolution and isolation of life. While presenting here our current research strategy, we invite scientists from all over the world to link their research on related questions for the joint development of a global picture on how evolution of life was triggered and regulated by land-surface processes.

中文翻译：

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白皮书：地球——干极限的进化

摘要 在地表，水的供应控制着生命的进化和形态的发展。目前几乎不知道这两种进化过程在缺水环境中相互作用的程度。尽管人们充分考虑到生物过程有助于风化并因此为侵蚀做好准备，但人们对不同地貌在地质时间尺度上形成屏障和生命走廊的程度知之甚少。在这里，我们通过介绍合作研究中心 CRC 1211 '地球 - 干旱极限的进化'，展示了如何解决生物学和景观进化的这种复杂相互作用的一个例子。CRC 是德国研究基金会的资助项目，将来自不同学科的科学家聚集在一起，共同解决长达十二年的复杂的新兴研究问题。CRC 1211 侧重于阿塔卡马沙漠和纳米布沙漠的干旱核心。主要目标是解开过去潮湿气候事件对地表的塑造如何与生命的进化共同进化。假设干旱被间断的湿润期打断，在地表过程中留下指纹和生物群的辐射，超过了生物群可以适应和影响景观发展的气候阈值。特定的沙漠景观元素，如土壤表面结皮、干燥裂缝和底土水，可能会在特定地点形成未充分开发的生命避难所，而旧河道和冲积扇系统可能会在地表过程和生物多样性中以小到中等尺度（10,000 平方公里）的梯度构建其扩散，这可能受雾或降雨的强度和持续时间控制。为了证实这些假设，我们结合了人口和（系统）遗传学、分子生物学、生物地理学、生态学、土壤科学、地表科学、地貌学、气象学、（古）气候学、（同位素）地球化学和物理约会，以发现和评估生命进化和孤立的轨迹和阈值。在介绍我们目前的研究策略时，