Cryptic, adaptive radiation of endoparasitic snails: sibling species of Leptoconchus (Gastropoda: Coralliophilidae) in corals

Coral reefs are renowned as complex ecosystems with an extremely large biodiversity. Parasite-host relationships contribute substantially to this, but are poorly known. We describe the results of a study in which approximately 60,000 corals were searched for parasitic Leptoconchus snails (Gastropoda...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organisms diversity & evolution 2011-03, Vol.11 (1), p.21-41
Main Authors: Gittenberger, Adriaan, Gittenberger, Edmund
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive radiation
Animal Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography
Biodiversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Complexity
Coral reefs
Coralliophilidae
Corals
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Developmental Biology
DNA
Evolutionary Biology
Gastropoda
Life Sciences
Marine molluscs
Mollusks
New species
Original Article
Parasites
Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography
Radiation
Sibling species
Snails
Taxonomy
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Summary:Coral reefs are renowned as complex ecosystems with an extremely large biodiversity. Parasite-host relationships contribute substantially to this, but are poorly known. We describe the results of a study in which approximately 60,000 corals were searched for parasitic Leptoconchus snails (Gastropoda: Coralliophilidae) in Indo-West Pacific waters of Egypt, the Maldives, Thailand, Palau and Indonesia. We discovered an adaptive radiation of 14 snail species, each of which lives in species-specific association with one or more of 24 mushroom coral species. The 14 snail species are described as new to science under the names Leptoconchus inactiniformis sp. nov., L. inalbechi sp. nov., L. incrassa sp. nov., L. incycloseris sp. nov., L. infungites sp. nov., L. ingrandifungi sp. nov., L. ingranulosa sp. nov., L. inlimax sp. nov., L. inpileus sp. nov., L. inpleuractis sp. nov., L. inscruposa sp. nov., L. inscutaria sp. nov., L. intalpina sp. nov., and L. massini sp. nov. Their separation is based on indisputable molecular differences, whereas the rudimentary shell characters or impoverished anatomical details do not allow identification. The coral hosts also serve to distinguish the snail species, as none of the former was found to contain more than one of the latter. The complexity of coral reefs is still underrated, as is shown here by the application of DNA taxonomy as an indispensable approach to unravel cryptic radiations, which must be known in order to understand the functioning of the ecosystem.
ISSN:1439-6092
1618-1077
DOI:10.1007/s13127-011-0039-1