Abstract
One of the current challenges facing conservation biologists is a lack of resolution of species boundaries in threatened groups residing in at-risk areas. This is particularly key for habitats like calcareous outcrops that are known to harbor a high degree of endemic species that may also possess extensive morphological variation. Here, we construct the first time-calibrated phylogeny and evaluate species number of the limestone endemic Mountainsnails (Oreohelicidae), a highly-threatened and phenotypically variable family of land snails from Western North America, using sequence fragments of the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (COI) from 50 recognized taxonomic species and subspecies. We found four highly supported clades that span wide geographic areas from southern Canada to northern Mexico. Using three species delimitation approaches, we identified a largely concordant set of 16 putative species, which represents less than a third the expected number of species given the current taxonomy and our dataset composition. Our results reveal that this is largely a result of two of the delimitation approaches lumping much of the taxonomic diversity of Oreohelicidae into a single species that possesses remarkable shell form variation and convergence. Moreover, we discuss the suitability of these approaches to delimiting clades with recent divergence, which is not uncommon for limestone endemic fauna and flora. To improve management decisions in montane limestone endemics, our research highlights the need for increased molecular and ecological studies of these isolated and phenotypically variable species.
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05 October 2020
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Joel Sauder, Kate Holcomb, Jeff Sorenson, Samantha Ferguson, and Christina Sato for facilitating permits and providing logistic support while conducting fieldwork in Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington, respectively. This work would not have been possible without the diligent collections or information provided by a number of academic and public field personnel: Lusha Tronstad, Paul Hendricks, Tom Burke, Hillary Boyd, Bill Gaines, Ann Sprague, Judy Hoder, Janet Millar, Eric Wagner, and Kevin Wheeler. Special thanks are given to Mark A. Ports for several stimulating discussions and providing a number of samples from the state of Nevada. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Heather Robeson and the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History for providing samples. Additional collection samples were provided by John Slapcinsky and the University of Florida Museum of Natural History. We are grateful to John Phillips, Kelly Martin, and Nicole Recla for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This work was funded by an an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program award to T. Mason Linscott (NSF 1842399) and awards from the National Geographic Society, Washington Forest Service Interagency Special Status/Sensitive Species Program, and South Dakota Fish and Wildlife to Kathleen Weaver. Research reported in this publication was also supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P30 GM103324 to Christine E. Parent.
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Linscott, T.M., Weaver, K., Morales, V. et al. Assessing species number and genetic diversity of the Mountainsnails (Oreohelicidae). Conserv Genet 21, 971–985 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-020-01302-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-020-01302-5