Phylogeography of freshwater planorbid snails reveals diversification patterns in Eurasian continental islands

Abstract

BackgroundIslands have traditionally been the centre of evolutionary biological research, but the dynamics of immigration and differentiation at continental islands have not been well studied. Therefore, we focused on the Japanese archipelago, the continental islands located at the eastern end of the Eurasian continent. While the Japanese archipelago is characterised by high biodiversity and rich freshwater habitats, the origin and formation mechanisms of its freshwater organisms are not clear. In order to clarify the history of the planorbid gastropod fauna, we conducted phylogenetic analysis, divergence time estimation, ancestral state reconstruction, and lineage diversity estimations.ResultsOur analyses revealed the formation process of the planorbid fauna in the Japanese archipelago. Most lineages in the Japanese archipelago have closely related lineages on the continent, and the divergence within the Japanese lineages presumably occurred after the late Pliocene. In addition, each lineage is characterised by different phylogeographical patterns, suggesting that immigration routes from the continent to the Japanese archipelago differ among lineages. Furthermore, a regional lineage diversity plot showed that the present diversity in the Japanese archipelago potentially reflects the differentiation of lineages within the islands after the development of the Japanese archipelago.ConclusionsAlthough additional taxon sampling and genetic analysis focused on each lineage are needed, our results suggest that immigration from multiple routes just prior to the development of the Japanese archipelago and subsequent diversification within the islands are major causes of the present-day diversity of the Japanese planorbid fauna.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1273-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Biogeography of the freshwater gastropod, Planorbella trivolvis, in the western United States

“…As the waterfowl travel along this flyway, they are likely transporting the snails between sites. Indeed, avian-mediated dispersal has been identified as a potential vector for promoting long-distance gene flow in freshwater snails [ 21 – 26 , 29 , 30 ]. The occasional dispersal by waterfowl may help explain the North-South genetic similarity in this species.…”

“…Gastropod taxa in the families Physidae, Planorbidae and Lymnaeidae have been found attached to feathers of the White-Faced Ibis ( Plegadis chihi ) (Vieillot) [ 21 ] and experimentally on the Tundra Swan ( Cygnus columbianus ) (Ord) [ 24 ]. This suggests that waterfowl-mediated dispersal promotes ongoing gene flow over large geographic ranges [ 27 , 28 ] and could strongly influence freshwater gastropod distribution as well [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Population genetics and geometric morphometrics of the freshwater snail Segmentina nitida reveal cryptic sympatric species of conservation value in Europe

“…The COI sequence from the S. nitida type locality in Denmark could not be used in the construction of the tree as the fragment of COI used in the previous study for an individual from Denmark (Jørgensen et al 2004) did not overlap with the sequences obtained in this study. However, COI sequences from Lodz, Poland (GenBank Accession Number: LC429396; Saito et al 2018) and Brandenburg, Germany (GenBank Accession Number: EF012178.1; Albrecht et al 2007) were included in phylogenetic analyses. For ITS2, due to no closely related outgroup being available for this marker and limited genetic diversity in the sequences obtained, instead of a phylogenetic tree a minimum spanning haplotype network was built using POPART (Leigh and Bryant 2015) with an epsilon value of 0.…”

“…To date, genetic data available for S. nitida have been relatively limited and do not provide clarity on the evolutionarily significant units contained within its current range. Seven S. nitida sequences amplified with four commonly used barcoding markers (three COI, two 16S and one 18S, and one Histone H3), are currently deposited in GenBank (Jørgensen et al 2004;Albrecht et al 2007;Saito et al 2018;as of 22nd February 2021). One other study of the population genetics of S. nitida (Mensch 2009) used COI and 12S ribosomal DNA markers as well as Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs) to detect genetic differences between populations of S. nitida in Germany, Poland, and the UK.…”

Genetic structure and phylogeographic relationships of the Bellamya complex: A nascent aquacultural snail in the Pearl River basin, China

“…Dispersal can be limited by landscape configuration and subsequently affect population genetic structures. For example, the mountainous landscapes caused by tectonic deformation may increase genetic divergence and result in the formation of phylogeographic breaks among natural populations by limiting their movements (Saito et al, ; Sauer, Oldeland, & Hausdorf, ; Sherpa et al, ). Strong population divergence is often observed between local snail populations as a result of either natural geographic isolation or habitat fragmentation (Hurtrez‐Bousses et al, ; Tian‐Bi, Jarne, Konan, Utzinger, & N'Goran, ).…”