Ross,

Just a question: what do you mean by "our species" -A. testudinalis on
the east coast or L. alveus on the Pacific?

Peter



At 01:43 AM 9/7/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Dear George;
>        I thought it had been established that alveus Conrad was a valid
>species, and not just a form.  With DNA, surely this is an easy thing to
>establish?  At any rate, it is almost certainly extinct (or expatriated,
>if the species can be confirmed for the Pacific Coast) in the Atlantic.
>The populations i referred to are specialized individuals of
>testudinalis Muller, that have colonized Zostera in at least a couple of
>localities in Nova Scotia, and i have heard it also occurs in Maine.  I
>don't think these deserve a forma name, and most certainly they are not
>alveus: they appear to simply be testudinalis's beginning adaptation to
>a niche rich in food: the population density is quite low so far, so
>they are not all that successful at this early date after the niche was
>vacated by the competition - give them a few hundred years and i think
>you'll have a legitimate form here, with much higher population
>densities utilizing the under-exploited food source much better.
>
>        It is interesting to note that the demise of the Atlantic alveus
seems
>to have had little or nothing to do with our species! I don't know if
>this can be considered good or bad....
>
>-Ross.

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Peter Egerton, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Collector of worldwide Mollusca, lifetime student
of zoology and computers.
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