Snails in the desert: Species diversification of Theba (Gastropoda: Helicidae) along the Atlantic coast of NW Africa.

ABSTRACT: The spatial subdivision of species often plays a pivotal role in speciation. Across their entire range, species are rarely panmictic and crucial consequences of spatial subdivision are (1) random genetic drift including historical factors, (2) uniform selection, and (3) divergent selection. Each of these consequences may result in geographic variation and eventually reproductive isolation, but their relative importance in speciation is still unclear. In this study, we used a combination of genetic, morphological, and climatic data to obtain a comprehensive picture of differentiation among three closely related, parapatrically distributed taxa of the land snail genus Theba occurring along the Atlantic coasts of South Morocco and Western Sahara. We conducted Mantel and partial Mantel

SUBMITTER: Greve C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5528248 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature