An international team of experts has resolved long-standing questions about the evolutionary history of molluscs, one of the most diverse zoological groups on the planet. The study, now featured on the cover of Science, reconstructs the family tree of molluscs and provides a ground-breaking perspective on their evolutionary history. Professor Juan Moles, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, is the only expert from a Spanish institution to sign the study, which responds to scientific debates that have persisted for decades.
In this study, the team has analysed the genomes of 77 mollusc species that are representative of eight major groups from around the world today, including lesser-known forms such as deep-sea monoplacophorans and solenogastropods, wormlike molluscs that live at great depths.
From microscopic bivalves to giant squid, from common garden snails to hydrothermal spring snails covered in iron scales, molluscs are organisms capable of thriving in a wide variety of habitats, including seabed, coastal, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Research now explains the extraordinary diversity in body shape, size, behaviour, habitat and genome of molluscs, of which there are nearly 100,000 described species (and many yet to be discovered).
The mollusc tree of life: a new perspective
Despite their ecological and economic importance, the evolutionary relationships of molluscs have been difficult to decipher because of conflicting evidence from the study of fossils, their physical characteristics and their genetics.
