Bythinella reyniesii

Bythinella reyniesii is a species of very small freshwater snail, an aquatic gastropod mollusk in the family Amnicolidae.

Bythinella reyniesii
An individual of the form compressa
Bythinella reyniesii Holotype MHNT
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Mollusca
Class:
Gastropoda
(unranked):
clade Caenogastropoda
clade Hypsogastropoda
clade Littorinimorpha
Superfamily:
Rissooidea
Family:
Amnicolidae
Subfamily:
Amnicolinae
Genus:
Bythinella
Species:
B. reyniesii
Binomial name
Bythinella reyniesii
(Dupuy, 1851)
Synonyms

Bythinella compressa (Frauenfeld, 1857)
Bythinella parvula Locard, 1893
Hydrobia reyniesii Dupuy, 1851
Paludinella compressa Frauenfeld, 1857
(but see text)

Distribution

These snails live in springs. They were long believed to occur only in Andorra, Austria, and parts of France. This disjunct distribution was puzzling, until it was realized that the populations assigned to several other supposedly distinct species actually seem to all belong to one species. In fact, Bythinella reyniesii is probably widespread from western Germany and nearby Belgium through central and eastern France to Andorra.[2]

Description and genetics

These are small snails, with a nearly cylindrical shell measuring just over 2 mm in length. There is little morphological and almost no genetic variation between the supposed "species". Thus, even though the proposed synonymy resulted from mtDNA COI and nDNA ITS1 sequence data analyses applied to the phylogenetic species concept (which does not recognize subspecies), as opposed to the morphologically diverse Bythinella bicarinata it might not even be warranted to accept the formerly distinct taxa as subspecies.[2]

Conservation status

The northeastern specimens formerly separated in Bythinella compressa were classified as Vulnerable (B1+2c), as they were known from less than ten freshwater springs which are affected by pollution.[3] Bythinella reyniesii, in the traditional sense was classified as a Species of Least Concern (meaning it is not considered globally threatened),[4] and this assessment applies to the species in the expanded sense also.

References
  1. Prié, V. (2011). "Bythinella reyniesii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2011: e.T3387A9815996. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2011-1.RLTS.T3387A9815996.en.
  2. Bichain J.-M.. Gaubert P., Samadi S. & Boisselier-Dubayle M.-C. (2007). "A gleam in the dark: Phylogenetic species delimitation in the confusing spring-snail genus Bythinella Moquin-Tandon, 1856 (Gastropoda: Rissooidea: Amnicolidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 45(3): 927–941. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.07.018, PDF.
  3. Mollusc Specialist Group (1996). "Bythinella compressa". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 1996. Retrieved 6 August 2007.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  4. Bouchet P. (1996). "Bythinella reyniesii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 1996. Retrieved 6 August 2007.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.