New records of the endemic Sicilian land snail species Marmorana (Murella) muralis (O. F. Müller, 1774) from the north of Tunisia (Pulmonata, Gastropoda)
ZooKeys
New records of the endemic Sicilian land snail species Marmorana (Murella) muralis (O. F. Müller, 1774) from the north of Tunisia (Pulmonata, Gastropoda)
Issaad Kawther Ezzine 0
Najet Dimassi 0
Beat Pfarrer
Khaled Said 0
Eike Neubert
0 Laboratoire de génétique, biodiversité et valorisation des bio-ressources, Institut Supérieur de Biotechnologie de Monastir , Avenue Taher Hadded (B.P 74) Monastir 5000, Tunisia 2 Natural History Museum Bern, Bernastr. 15, CH-3005 Bern , Switzerland 3 Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern , CH-3012 Bern , Switzerland
Marmorana (Murella) muralis is known as an endemic species of Sicily Island, which is introduced in many European countries. Here, M. (M.) muralis is recorded from the north of Tunisia. In order to confirm the identification of samples collected from several localities, shell morphology, details of genital organs and two mitochondrial markers (COI and 16S) were investigated. The results of the molecular study, as well as the morphological and anatomical studies confirm the identification of all Tunisian samples as M. (M.) muralis. The analysis of mitochondrial markers shows a low divergence between Sicilian and Tunisian samples suggesting a recent introduction of M. (M.) muralis to the North of Tunisia. The comparison of morphological characters of M. (M.) muralis with shell characters of Murella nicollei described by Pallary (1926) confirms that the latter should be considered as synonym of M. (M.) muralis.
eol>16S; COI; anatomy; Marmorana (Murella) muralis morphology; Murella nicollei; Sicily; Tunisia
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Résumé
Marmorana (Murella) muralis est connue comme une espèce endémique de l’île de Sicile qui est
actuellement introduite dans plusieurs pays européens. Dans la présente étude, nous enregistrons, la présence
de M. (M.) muralis dans différentes localités du Nord de la Tunisie. Dans le but de valider l’authenticité
des spécimens collectés de différentes localités, la morphologie de la coquille, l’anatomie de l’appareil
génital ainsi que deux marqueurs mitochondriaux (COI et 16S) ont été analysés. Les résultats de l’étude
moléculaire ainsi que ceux de l’étude morphologique et anatomique confirment qu’il s’agit bien de l’espèce
Sicilienne M. (M.) muralis. L’analyse des deux marqueurs mitochondriaux montre une faible divergence
entre les populations Sicilienne et Tunisienne suggérant ainsi une récente introduction de cette espèce en
Tunisie. La comparaison des critères morphologiques de l’espèce M. (M.) muralis avec les critères de la
coquille de l’espèce Murella nicollei décrite par
Pallary (1926)
confirme que cette dernière doit être
considérée comme synonyme de l’espèce M. (M.) muralis.
Mots clés
16S, COI, anatomie, Marmorana (Murella) muralis, morphologie, Murella nicollei, Sicile, Tunisie
Introduction
Land snails compose a group of invertebrates which are characterized by low mobility
and dispersal capacity. The evolution of morphological characters within land snail
species is widely influenced by the environmental and ecological conditions.
Marmorana (Murella) muralis is an endemic helicid species from Sicily Island, which is
characterized by an extremely high variability of shell morphology as well as molecular
characters
(Fiorentino et al. 2013)
. It was demonstrated that paleogeographical
factors and environmental changes affected the shell morphology of M. (M.) muralis in
Sicily
(Fiorentino et al. 2013)
. This species was introduced by humans to many other
European areas such as Tuscany in Italy, Sardinia, the Baleares, Portugal and
Bouchesdu-Rhône in France. Tunisia is a quite well sampled area as evidenced by
Letourneux
and Bourguignat (1887)
, who documented land snails from a plethora of localities.
Interestingly, they never recorded the presence of Marmorana (Murella)
Pfeiffer, 1877
in the area. It was Pallary in 1926, who was the first to describe a Murella, Murella
nicollei, from Tabarka in northwest Tunisia.
Recent sampling efforts by the senior author revealed the presence of a Marmorana
(Murella) taxon at several localities in the north of Tunisia. The present study aims to
1) identify the samples collected from Tunisia based on morphological and molecular
characters, 2) determine the possible origin of each Tunisian population known and 3)
clarify the status of Murella nicollei Pallary, 1926.
Materials and methods
Living specimens were collected by hand at several localities in Tunisia during two
periods: spring 2014, and winter 2015/2016. Geographic coordinates were recorded
using a GPS device. For subsequent molecular analyses, specimens were preserved and
stored in 80% ethanol until dissection and DNA extraction.
Morphological and anatomical studies
First assessments of the shell morphological characters were done by using simple
magnifying glasses. Preserved animals were dissected under a LEICA M212 stereo
microscope using thin tweezers. The genital organs of the specimens were removed fr (...truncated)