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Sep
12
2007
Did prehistoric snail farms provide modern refugia for embattled molluscs?
Genetic data have helped clear up a problem that’s been puzzling scientists for over a century: how the endangered Tahitian tree snail Partula hyalina is absent from neighbouring islands, yet [relatively] thriving populations occur on islands more than a thousand kilometres away. Writing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, University of Michigan biologist Diarmaid Ó Foighil and colleagues show that founder populations radiated from Tahiti to islands in the Cook and Austral archipelagos, probably within the last thirty thousand years. The timing of the snails’ spread coincides with a period of human exploration, settlement and trade among the remote Oceania athols. The species’ unusual white shell — valued in traditional jewelry making — could explain why P. hyalina reached its far-flung shores, whereas its altogether-less-striking sister species P. clara never made it off the island. And with Tahiti’s tree-snail population being decimated by the carnivorous alien Euglandina rosea, those distant outposts could make all the difference. Source: Lee T, Burch JB, Coote T, Fontaine B, Gargominy O, Pearce-Kelly P & Ó Foighil D (2007) Prehistoric inter-archipelago trading of Polynesian tree snails leaves a conservation legacy. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1009
Related story in Conservation magazine: Extinction at a Snail’s Pace
Image © Vladislav Mitic
Filed Under Endangered species, Invasive species, Marine, Monitoring, Restoration, Socio-political issues |
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