Systematics of Recent and Fossil Conidae

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This project focuses on one of the largest families of marine gastropod molluscs, the Conidae. This family of mainly tropical marine snails is important because of its very high diversity, the broad geographic range of many of its species, its ecological role as a dominant predatory group, primarily in shallow tropical seas of the Indo-West Pacific region, and its unusual danger to man. Its neurotoxic venom, normally used to overpower prey organisms, has claimed at least 30 human lives; the venom peptides are becoming increasingly significant in neurobiological studies of cell membrane proteins that regulate ion transport. The family also serves as a model of a type of evolutionary adaptive radiation characteristic of many groups of marine organisms in the Indo-West Pacific. These radiations have contributed importantly to the richness of the shallow-water marine biota of this vast region, in contrast to other marine environments. The Conidae originated at or just preceding the Cenozoic era. Fossils occur throughout the Tertiary and Quaternary geologic record; the major expansions occurred in the Eocene and Miocene epochs. The overall goal of this long-term project is to elucidate important evolutionary trends in species diversity, morphological adaptations to different environments, distribution, and ecology in the Conidae. For the proposed grant period the main goal is to improve the taxonomy and identification system of species in this complex and taxonomically very difficult family. Objective, quantitative taxonomic methods will be applied, a chronological study of type specimens and identity of species described through 1840 will be completed, and a revisionary study of one important subgroup will be made. The project will integrate study of fossils with continuing taxonomic, comparative biological, and biogeographic studies of recent species. The results may increase understanding of the evolutionary processes that lead to high biotic diversity in tropical regions and of the impact of these patterns of evolutionary radiations on the organization of communities of marine organisms.