title: Biogeography: molecular trails from hitch-hiking snails.
abstract: Darwin was fascinated by the transportation of land snails across great swathes of open ocean by birds--he even immersed snails in sea water to see how long they would survive. Here we follow a molecular phylogenetic trail that reveals the incredible transequatorial dispersal of the land snail Balea from Europe to the Azores and the Tristan da Cunha islands, and back again. This long-distance dispersal is unexpected for what are proverbially considered the most pedestrian of creatures.
authors.affiliation: National Museum of Natural History Naturalis, PO Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Edmund
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gittenberger
authors.forename: Dick S J
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Groenenberg
authors.forename: Bas
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kokshoorn
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Preece
mesh_terms: D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds / Q000502:physiology*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005060:Europe; D005843:Geography; D007055:Iceland; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D012908:Snails / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial