%0 Journal Article
%A Garbar, А. V.
%A Komіushіn, А. V.
%D 2003
%F zu2:9696
%J MALACOLOGIA
%K Radix, karyotypes, taxonomy, species distinctions.
%N 1
%P 141-148
%T Karyotypes of european species of radix (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Lymnaeidae) and their relevance to species distinction in the genus
%U http://eprints.zu.edu.ua/9696/
%V 45
%X Karyotypes of Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758) and three disputable taxa considered by  different authors as distinct species or assigned as forms of Radix peregra (Muller, 1774),  sensu lato - R. labiata (Rossmassler, 1835), R. balthica (Linnaeus, 1758), and R. ampla  (Hartmann, 1821) - were studied with preparations obtained from gonad tissues by the airdrying  method. The studied taxa have the same diploid number (2n = 34), but are characterized  by different morphology of some chromosome pairs. In particular, R. labiata (traditionally  identified as R. peregra, s. s.) and R. balthica (= R. ovata in traditional understanding) differ  in the number of subtelocentric chromosomes (1 and 5, respectively), species status of  these taxa being also supported by pronounced differences in centomeric indexes of chromosome  pairs 4 and 16. Species distinctness of R. ampla is supported by differences in  three chromosome pairs, and karyological similarity between this taxon and R. balthica is  also noted. FN values varied among the studied taxa from 56 in R. ampla to 66 in R. labiata.  The known karyological characters are traced on phylogenetic trees suggested by recent  molecular reconstructions. This study demonstrates that karyology can be an effective tool  for aiding taxonomic distinctions of historically problematic groups of molluscs.