Testing genital anatomical characters in clausiliid systematics on the example of Alopiinae (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Clausiliidae)
De Mattia, W. (2025). Testing genital anatomical characters in clausiliid systematics on the example of Alopiinae (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Clausiliidae). PhD Thesis. Universität Wien: Wien. 175 + bijlagen pp. https://dx.doi.org/10.25365/thesis.79073
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| Beschikbaar in | Auteur |
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Documenttype: Doctoraat/Thesis/Eindwerk
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| Trefwoorden |
Biogeny > Phylogeny
Classification > Taxonomy
Systematics
Clausiliidae J. E. Gray, 1855 [WoRMS]; Mollusca [WoRMS]
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| Author keywords |
Genital morphology; morphological taxon delimitation; shell morphology; multivariate analysis; character displacement; principal component analysis |
| Abstract |
The taxonomy and systematics of the door snail genera Montenegrina Boettger, 1877 and Siciliaria Vest, 1867 were revised, based on a comprehensive genital anatomical investigation combined with shell morphology and DNA sequence data. The genital morphology of 405 specimens of 124 taxa from 174 populations of Montenegrina was investigated. The genus revealed an astonishing variability in genital morphology, with distinctive combinations of anatomical features for each taxon. Siciliaria revealed a remarkable variability in genital morphology as well with taxon-specific distinctive combinations of anatomical features. The genital morphology of 120 specimens of 22 taxa from 44 populations was investigated. Phylogenetic trees, based on COI and ITS2 sequences, showed that the species clustered within two separate highly supported, clades. Montenegrina quantitative (morphometric measurements) and qualitative (categorization of traits) data were statistically analyzed by a multivariate ordination and clustering approach, to test if genitalia and shell morphological traits correspond to the phylogeny based on DNA sequences. Neighbour Joining trees (NJ), based on Euclidean distances including both the shell and genital measurements, and NJ trees based on Hamming distances from qualitative categorization of traits, highlight the non-concordance between morphological characters and phylogenetic reconstruction depicted in the BI (Bayesian Inference) phylogenetic trees. The topologies of these morphological trees have hardly any branching in common with the DNA-based tree. Thus, despite the morphological characters are essential for alpha-taxonomy, they apparently appear randomly throughout the range of taxa, making their contribution to the phylogenetic reconstruction apparently very limited. The research results presented here are explanatory and should serve as a stimulus to investigate further obliged rock/dwelling clausiliid species e.g. of the genera Medora, Muticaria or Charpentieria or even other families (e.g. Chondrinidae) that occupy the same ecological niche |
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