6 research outputs found
Who lives where? Molecular and morphometric analyses clarify which Unio species (Unionida, Mollusca) inhabit the southwestern Palearctic
Many doubts still exist about which freshwater
mussel Unio species inhabit Northwest Africa. While
some authors refer to the presence of Unio delphinus
in the Atlantic North African basins of Morocco, a recent
International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) assessment performed on Moroccan Unio species,
recognised the existence of a distinct species, Unio
foucauldianus, with a critically endangered conservation
status. The present study delivered new genetic, morphological,
and geographical distribution data on two
Unio species (i.e. U. delphinus and U. foucauldianus)
greatly increasing the almost non-existent data on these
taxa. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis revealed two highly
supported geographically concordant clades, which
diverged by 3.2 ± 0.6 % (uncorrected p distance): the first distributed across Iberia and corresponding to
U. delphinus, and the second distributed across
Morocco, corresponding to U. foucauldianus. These results
were corroborated by the analysis of ten newly
developed microsatellite loci as well as shell morphometry.
We suggest that the IUCN critically endangered
conservation status of U. foucauldianus should be
revised and probably down-listed since its actual distribution
is much wider than previously described.
Phylogenetic relationships with the other Unio species
were resolved, showing that U. delphinus and
U. foucauldianus fall inside the pictorum lineage. The
estimated molecular rate reported herein (0.265 ± 0.06 %
per million years) represents the first for the Unionida
and could be used as a reference in future studies.Financial support was provided by Portuguese Foundation
for Science and Technology (FCT) project PTDC/AAC-AMB/
117688/2010 and by Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund
(reference 15256799).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio