More Like this
-
The Pacificellinae are a group of small, high-spired land snails distributed on islands across the Pacific. Some species are endemic to particular island groups, but others have wide geographic distributions, several of which have been attributed to anthropogenic transport between islands before western contact. We used DNA sequence data (COI, 16S, ITS2, 28S) from recently collected and historical specimens to estimate a phylogeny of the Pacificellinae, with a focus on Hawaiian species. Phylogenetic analyses support recognizing Lamellidea and Pacificella as distinct genera and indicate that the genus group Tornatellinops should be regarded as a synonym of Lamellidea. The number of taxa defined by species delimitation analyses (ASAP, bPTP, mPTP) varies widely, with between 6 and 42 species estimated in the Hawaiian Islands. These candidate species hypotheses were evaluated in an integrative framework, including shell morphology, geography, and a multilocus phylogeny, to revise the taxonomy of Hawaiian pacificellines. Four Lamellidea species and two Pacificella species are recognized from the Hawaiian Islands, including two widespread species introduced to Hawaiʻi from the South Pacific. Lamellidea peponum in Hawaiʻi shows little genetic divergence from Polynesian specimens previously referred to L. oblonga, and the name L. oblonga is now regarded as a junior synonym. Lamellidea polygnampta is recognized here from across the Hawaiian Islands, L. cylindrica from the island of O‘ahu, and the lowland species, L. extincta, from the main Hawaiian Islands and the Northwestern Islands. The only Pacificella specimens found in Hawai‘i in modern surveys are more closely related to specimens of P. variabilis from Polynesia than to historical specimens of P. baldwini, indicating that the only Pacificella species now found in the main Hawaiian Islands appears to be introduced. Pacificellines have declined in abundance in Hawai‘i over the last century and the two species L. extincta and P. baldwini, formerly present across the Hawaiian Islands, are now either critically endangered or extinct.
-
Abstract Symbioses between invertebrate animals and chemosynthetic bacteria form the basis of hydrothermal vent ecosystems worldwide. In the Lau Basin, deep-sea vent snails of the genus Alviniconcha associate with either Gammaproteobacteria (A. kojimai, A. strummeri) or Campylobacteria (A. boucheti) that use sulfide and/or hydrogen as energy sources. While the A. boucheti host–symbiont combination (holobiont) dominates at vents with higher concentrations of sulfide and hydrogen, the A. kojimai and A. strummeri holobionts are more abundant at sites with lower concentrations of these reductants. We posit that adaptive differences in symbiont physiology and gene regulation might influence the observed niche partitioning between host taxa. To test this hypothesis, we used high-pressure respirometers to measure symbiont metabolic rates and examine changes in gene expression among holobionts exposed to in situ concentrations of hydrogen (H2: ~25 µM) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S: ~120 µM). The campylobacterial symbiont exhibited the lowest rate of H2S oxidation but the highest rate of H2 oxidation, with fewer transcriptional changes and less carbon fixation relative to the gammaproteobacterial symbionts under each experimental condition. These data reveal potential physiological adaptations among symbiont types, which may account for the observed net differences in metabolic activity and contribute to the observed niche segregation among holobionts.