Biogeography of vine thickets and open woodland in subtropical eastern Australia: a case study of three camaenid land snail genera

Lorelle Stanisic; Carmel McDougall; Paul Oliver

doi:10.1071/ZO23032

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Previous Contents Vol 71(3)

Biogeography of vine thickets and open woodland in subtropical eastern Australia: a case study of three camaenid land snail genera

Lorelle Stanisic

^A ^B ^* , Carmel McDougall ^B ^C and Paul Oliver

^A ^D

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Queensland Museum, PO Box 3300, South Brisbane, Qld 4101, Australia.

^B Australian Rivers Institute, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan campus, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

^C Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 8LB, Scotland, UK.

^D Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University, Nathan campus, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: lorelle.stanisic@griffithuni.edu.au, lorelle.holcroft@bigpond.com

Handling Editor: Steven Cooper

Australian Journal of Zoology 71, ZO23032 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO23032

Submitted: 9 September 2023 Accepted: 19 January 2024 Published: 13 February 2024

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Dry rainforests and open woodlands occur across much of eastern Australia. However, the biogeographic history of these habitats remains poorly known, especially when compared to nearby moist rainforest areas. Land snails are commonly used as model organisms to understand patterns of origins of regional endemism due to their low vagility. Here we present an analysis of patterns of mitochondrial genetic diversity in three camaenid snail lineages with distributions centred on vine-thicket and open woodland habitats of eastern Queensland, specifically Euryladra from open woodlands, Brigaladra from inland semievergreen vine thickets, and Figuladra from coastal vine thickets. Lineages from habitats west of the Great Dividing Range show relatively low genetic divergence between localities, with particularly low structuring in the open woodland taxon Euryladra. Figuladra from vine-thicket habitats closer to the coast shows relatively deeper genetic divergence, with marked divergences between some upland and lowland areas in south-east Queensland, and across the St Lawrence Gap. This structuring suggests that taxa associated with vine thicket habitats have had a more discernible history of isolation than open woodlands. This said, genetic divergence across many vine thickets patches in lowland coastal regions is also shallow, suggesting many apparently disjunct vine thicket habitats and their associated species also have a recent history of connectivity.

Keywords: biogeography, camaenids, dry rainforest, genetic diversity, fire, land snails, open woodland, vine thicket.

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