Molecular phylogeny of Japanese gastropods in the genus Batillaria

Abstract

Phylogenetic relationships among four species of snails in the genus Batillaria that inhabit intertidal zones of the Japanese Islands were determined from the nucleotide sequences of part of the mitochondrial gene for cytochrome oxidase I. The analysis indicated that B. multiformis and B. flectosiphonata are closely related to each other and that B. zonalis is the basal of the four species. All snails with a shell that resembled the shell of B. flectosiphonata that were collected from Ariake Bay and the Goto Islands had mitochondrial DNA that corresponded to that of either B. multiformis or B. cumingi. Our results suggest that the morphological characteristics that have been used to discriminate among species in the genus Batillaria need to be revised.