Experts from the Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research (the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Urals Branch) have discovered four new species of freshwater mollusks of the Sphaeriidae subfamily in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Caucasus and Morocco, project leader and Director of the Center’s Institute of Biogeography and Genetic Resources, Yulia Bespalaya told TASS.
The Russian agency’s article published Monday, said that in long-term studies, the scientists had collected typical representative samples and categorized and identified the mollusks’ evolution, morphology, anatomy, and molecular genetic data.
“One species comes from the Kolyma basin [in Siberia, Russia],” said Bespalaya. “The second species that we’ve described comes from Morocco, but it also lives in European countries, such as Macedonia or Turkey. The third species was found in Kyrgyzstan, and the fourth in the Caucasus.”
Expeditions to typical river basin locations–the Indigirka, the Kolyma, and the Yenisei Rivers– yielded the new species.
Their populations are viable, even despite the fact that for winter they literally freeze into the ice. Sphaeriidae are active bio filters, and they are a food source for various birds and fish, including those of commerical importance.
Quite often these mollusks dominate ecosystems, she elaborated. Their presence and conditions are important in assessing the biodiversity of a reservoir, and this assessment requires a proper taxonomy.
Scientists from St. Petersburg and Surgut State Universities, the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Zoological Institute, Sidi Mohamed ben Abdellah University, and Mohammed I University (Morocco) participated in the experiment.