• Corpus ID: 87914631

Recent genera and species of the family Haliotidae Rafinesque, 1815 (Gastropoda : Vetigastropoda)

@article{Geiger1998RecentGA,
  title={Recent genera and species of the family Haliotidae Rafinesque, 1815 (Gastropoda : Vetigastropoda)},
  author={Daniel L. Geiger},
  journal={The Nautilus},
  year={1998},
  volume={111},
  pages={85-116}
}

• D. Geiger
• Published 1998
• Biology
• The Nautilus

This dissertation evaluates the evolutionary history of the marine gastropod family Haliotidae, part of the clade Vetigastropoda. Abalone are important for commercial fisheries, hence are relatively well-known. However, it is surprising that the assessment of its species-level diversity has remained untouched since the beginning of this century. After one hundred years of neglect it seems appropriate to re-evaluate the alpha and beta taxonomy of the family and to provide a hypothesis of relationships. At the beginning of any phylogenetic analysis, the ingroup taxa need to be evaluated, because any phylogenetic tree is only as good as the names on the terminal nodes. In chapter 1, I assess all the over 200 species-level and the 17 genus-level taxa. The evaluation is based on all the original descriptions as well as much secondary literature, both scientific as well as grey literature. Inspection of US and European museum collections adds to the in-depth study of the taxonomic issues. The family has an evolutionary history reaching at least to the Upper Cretaceous, with some fossil representatives known from many regions of the world. Can the fossils contribute to the understanding of the evolution of the group leading to today’s diversity? Chapter 2 investigates this question, which will also determine whether the fossil representatives can help to elucidate the phylogeny of Haliotidae. The goal of this study is a “total evidence cladistic analysis”, which by definition utilizes multiple sources of information. The treatment of different kinds of data often gives rise to internal methodological conflicts. Some of the most severe conflicts arise in the treatment of DNA sequence data. In order to include DNA sequences in the analysis, the treatment of all observations is scrutinized, and a methodology that can accommodate all types of data is developed in Chapter 3. The new and rather unorthodox