In St. Petersburg State University and the Federal Research Center for Integrated Arctic Research named after Laverov, scientists have introduced a new classification of freshwater snails belonging to the family Lymnaeidae.
As part of the research, involving specialists from Argentina, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Cuba, the world’s largest library of deciphered species was created—a significant step in studying the biological diversity of these mollusks.
The new classification system complements and refines previously known variants. Scientists conducted global biogeographic zoning of pond snails, analyzing their distribution across continents and zoogeographic regions.
Freshwater pond snails play a crucial role in medicine and veterinary science as intermediate hosts for parasitic worms. Currently, over 150 species of these mollusks are known, but molecular-genetic methods have revealed inaccuracies in their initial classification based on shell characteristics.
The creation of a library of deciphered sequences of pond snail species allows scientists to propose a new global classification system based on stable characteristics of the mollusks.