Phylogenetic relationships of the land snail; Eobania vermiculata (Müller, 1774) from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A combined morphological and molecular analysis

Abstract

Eobania vermiculata is a well-known circum-Mediterranean land snail having a cosmopolitan distribution that makes it suitable for phylogenetic studies. The present work examines the phylogenetic relationships of two populations of this land snail from Egypt and Saudi Arabia using mitochondrial markers (partial 16S rDNA and COI gene sequencing) in addition to traditional methods of shell’s shape analysis. The study highlights the extraordinary morphological variations between the two studied snail populations. This variation seems to be related to the geographic origin but not the colouration of the shell and may have caused the present changes in their mitochondrial genes. The molecular phylogenetic analysis of partial 16S rDNA and COI gene segments confirms the morphological findings. The two monophyletic populations of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian E. vermiculata were found to represent two distinct groups. The concordance of morphological and molecular results, that produced very clear separation of both populations, leads us to conclude that the two separate groups could be considered two separate subspecies.

Keywords

• Eobania vermiculata
• Shell morphometrics
• Molecular phylogeny
• 16S rDNA
• COI