Bythinella reyniesii

Taxobox
name = "Bythinella reyniesii"

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image_width = 240px
image_caption = "compressa"-type specimen in habitat
status = LR/lc
status_system = IUCN2.3
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
ordo = Sorbeoconcha
familia = Hydrobiidae
genus = "Bythinella"
species = "B. reyniesii"
binomial = "Bythinella reyniesii"
binomial_authority = (Dupuy, 1851)
synonyms = "Bythinella compressa" (Frauenfeld, 1857)
"Bythinella parvula" Locard, 1893
"Hydrobia reyniesii" Dupuy, 1851
"Paludinella compressa" Frauenfeld, 1857
(but see text)

"Bythinella reyniesii" is a gastropod species in the family Hydrobiidae. These snails live in springs and were long believed to occur only in Andorra, Austria and parts of France. The disjunct distribution was puzzling, until it was realized that the populations assigned to several distinct species actually seem to belong here. In fact, "B. reyniesii" is probably widespread from western Germany and nearby Belgium through central and eastern France to Andorra.Bichain "et al." (2007)]

They are small snails, with a nearly cylindrical shell measuring just over 2 mm in length. There is little morphological and almost no genetic variation between the supposed "species". Thus, even though the proposed synonymy resulted from mtDNA COI and nDNA ITS1 sequence data analyses applied to the phylogenetic species concept (which does not recognize subspecies), as opposed to the morphologically diverse "B. bicarinata" it might not even be warranted to accept the formerly distinct taxa as subspecies.

The northeastern specimens formerly separated in "B. compressa" were classified as Vulnerable (B1+2c), as they were known from less than ten freshwater springs which are affected by pollution [MSG (1996)] . "B. reyniesii", in the traditional sense was classified as a Species of Least Concern (meaning it is not considered globally threatened) [Bouchet (1996)] , and this assessment applies to the species in the expanded sense also.

Footnotes

References

* (2007): A gleam in the dark: Phylogenetic species delimitation in the confusing spring-snail genus "Bythinella" Moquin-Tandon, 1856 (Gastropoda: Rissooidea: Amnicolidae). "Mol. Phylogenet. Evol." 45(3): 927–941. doi|10.1016/j.ympev.2007.07.018 [http://bichain.free.fr/doc/bichain_etal_MolPhylEvol_2007.pdf PDF fulltext]
*|year=1996|id=3387|title=Bythinella reyniesii|downloaded=6 August 2007
*|year=1996|id=3392|title=Bythinella compressa|downloaded=6 August 2007