Hi all,

I just thought I'd pass on a message that Dr. David Lindberg
sent to me as a reply concerning the Lottia alveus population
I found in Boundary Bay:
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Peter:

It looks like L. alveus (although darker than the ones I have seen from S.E.
Alaska).  To be absolutely sure - I would have to see the radula and
ultimately the genes.  L. alveus has been reported from about 10 localities
in the Pacific NW ranging from Vancouver Island to the Juneau area and
including the Queen Charlotte Islands.  I have a student who surveyed the
east coast of Vancouver Island last summer and did not find a single
specimen.  Some patellogastropods are like that - spotty in both time and
space although their preferred substrate is readily available.  We are
hoping to get a couple of preserved specimens from George Holm to examine the
radula and sequence to answer the last question. My student, Emina Begovic,
was successful in getting old DNA out of some dried Atlantic specimens
several years ago so we have a DNA sequence for the Atlantic taxon.
Comparing that sequence to the Pacific coast taxon might provide some
insights into how long these two have been separated, and regardless of the
rank we arbitrarily assign to them - the taxon is still gone from the
Atlantic.


Best, David

http://www.ucmp.Berkeley.Edu/people/davidl/
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All quite exciting stuff...I can't wait for the results of the tests!

Bye for now,

Peter Egerton


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Peter Egerton, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Collector of worldwide Mollusca, lifetime student
of zoology and computers.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Step into my website:
http://www.intergate.ca/personal/seashell/index.html
("Peter's Seashells" includes "Seashells of British Columbia",
        links and my resume)
        -Links to add, remove, alter?  Just ask!
        -Suggestions always welcome :-)
        -This is an on-going project...

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