World Congress of Malacology Antwerp ... - Unitas Malacologica

congener R. guerinii Reclùz, 1843. The analysis of shells of both species, based on morphometric
methods, has showed a clear distinction, confirming Verduin’s idea of morphological separation. On
the other hand, the examination of soft body parts colour patterns have revealed a full identity
between the two species and molecular comparison by means of 16S mitochondrial DNA have
showed a complete overlap between DNA sequences of R. panhormensis and R. guerinii.
Furthermore, radular compared morphology, carried out by SEM, have shown a high degree of
similarity. For these reasons, R. panhormensis Verduin, 1985 can be considered as a peculiar
morphotype of R. guerinii Reclùz, 1843, thus becoming a junior synonym of this latter species.
A conservational approach over Azorean terrestrial molluscs
Cunha, Regina; Rodrigues, Pedro; Martins, António M. de Frias
CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Pólo Açores, and
Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores, 9501-855 Ponta Delgada, Açores, Portugal,
Email: rcunha@notes.uac.pt; pedrorodrigues@notes.uac.pt; frias@notes.uac.pt
In Europe, 9% of the known molluscan species are threatened by extinction, mainly Mediterranean
and Atlantic islands endemics, as a consequence of anthropogenic disturbance over their habitats,
through urbanization, deforestation, soil erosion and contamination. Terrestrial molluscs are an
important component of native habitats in the archipelago of Azores; of their 111 described species,
44% are endemic. Native habitats, vast in Azores in a recent past, are now small and sparse, due to
the increase of traffic roads, pasture, commercial harvest and urbanization. In addition, owing to the
archipelago’s geologically young age natural disturbance is high due to tectonic and volcanic activity
in most of its nine islands, and, owing to its geographic location colonization and recolonization
events are rare due to isolation. As a consequence, habitat fragmentation is taking place and may
threaten populations to extinction. Species with small and/or fragmented populations will exhibit the
highest degree of vulnerability and conservation priorities should be focused on them. In the course
of projects ATLANTIS and BIONATURA (INTERREG IIIB), a Visual Basic software – Atlantis
Tierra 2.0 – was developed for data storage of all species on the surveyed geographical area. It
includes several tools, namely, for taxonomic and conservation management analysis, and allows the
calculation of species richness, their rarity or complementarity, in cells of 500x500 m. The aim of
this study is to demonstrate that Atlantis Tierra 2.0 may represent a powerful tool for molluscan
conservation, through its main outputs: regional and local biodiversity check-lists, hot spot analysis,
list of Threatened species and Priority sites for conservation. The information provided may also
contribute for Natura 2000, Municipal, Special, Regional and Coastal Zone Master Plans or to help
political allocation of financial resources into conservation.
Presentation of this work at WCM was made possible by Project BIONATURA (INTERREG IIIB).
Replaying the tape: replicated biogeographic patterns in Cape Verde Conus
Cunha, Regina L. 1,2 ; Tenorio, Manuel J. 3 ; Rüber, Lukas 1,4 ; Afonso, Carlos 2 ; Castilho, Rita 2 ;
Zardoya, Rafael 1
1. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-
CSIC; José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2; 28006 Madrid, Spain,
Email: rafaz@mncn.csic.es
2. CCMAR, Campus de Gambelas-Universidade do Algarve; 8005-139 Faro, Portugal,
Email: rcunha@ualg.pt; rcastil@ualg.pt; cmlafonso@ualg.pt
3. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Cadiz; 11510 Puerto Real; Cádiz, Spain,
Email: manuel.tenorio@uca.es
4. Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK,
Email: l.ruber@nhm.ac.uk
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