Interrelationships of Major Gastropod Clades: Mathildidae and the 'Lower Heterobranchs' (Mollusca)

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9318231 BIELER Gastropods (snails and slugs) are the largest group of mollusks, which in turn are only outnumbered by arthropods (insects, crabs, etc.) in living species diversity. Gastropods play important roles as food items (escargot, abolone, conch, etc.) as crop pests, as vectors for human and farm animal diseases (schistosoma, flukes), and as important elements of the reef building community in the world's oceans. However, the interrelationships of the various groups of snails have remained unclear. The present study concentrates on a group of marine gastropods, the family Mathildidae. Better biological knowledge of this morphologically "intermediate" group may provide insight into how the major snail groups (e.g. land snails and sea slugs) are related to one another. This knowledge, in turn, will provide key information for a variety of scientific and applied fields. For instance, close relationship of certain groups may suggest the presence of similar biochemical properties of these organisms, a knowledge that can be useful in the search for "new" biochemical components in drug research. The project will involve field collecting, studies of available material of living and fossil species in museum collections, anatomical studies, histology, scanning electron microscopy, and computer-assisted modelling of three dimensional morphologies. %%% This study will clarify higher level relationships among gastropods (snails, slugs, etc.). Such informnation could be of utility in identifying relatives of organisms found to have chemicals of potential pharmaceutical importance. ***