The area around the lower Salmon River in Idaho is a biological hotspot for Oreohelix mountiansnails. These mountainsnails display remarkable patterns of phenotypic and genetic diversity. In this area there are around 24 described species and as many as 15 new species that need to be described. The shapes and orientation of the shells of these species vary greatly, even for some which are in close proximity (<30m). The main scope of the larger project is to answer questions about why there is this hotspot.

 

One important factor to distinguish why these changes are occurring is to quantify how shell shapes differ. We will then use these quantified differences and compare that with genetic data. This will help determine if some of these changes are due to phenotypic plasticity or if shape divergence is caused by significant genetic differences.

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I assisted in this project by collecting specimens and hours of shell setup for x-ray imaging. Using these x-ray images, shell shapes were quantified through geometric morphometric analysis. Understanding how the shapes of the snail shells vary can help us gain important information about what changes have occurred and how they have changed from their ancestral state.

 

This was research I conducted as part of EPSCoR (MURI) Program Award. My assistance for this project was from Fall 2016 through Summer 2017.