Biogeography of the living Lymnaeidae

Abstract

The distribution of the recent Lymnaeidae across continents and zoogeo-graphical regions of the world is reviewed, with a brief characteristic of the geo-graphical distribution of each extant lymnaeid genus. The quantitative estimates ofthe similarity between the lymnaeid faunas of different continents and the largestzoogeographical regions are provided and discussed. It is shown that the highesttaxonomic level of endemism in the family is observed in the Nearctic region, andthe overall faunal similarity is highest among the Palaearctic and Oriental region,whereas the Australian fauna is the most peculiar. A special section of the article isdevoted to a review of the invasive lymnaeid species and the possible consequencesof their invasions to the non-native areas.