title: Phylogeography of a land snail suggests trans-Mediterranean neolithic transport.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Fragmented distribution ranges of species with little active dispersal capacity raise the question about their place of origin and the processes and timing of either range fragmentation or dispersal. The peculiar distribution of the land snail Tudorella sulcata s. str. in Southern France, Sardinia and Algeria is such a challenging case.
  
  
  METHODS
  Statistical phylogeographic analyses with mitochondrial COI and nuclear hsp70 haplotypes were used to answer the questions of the species' origin, sequence and timing of dispersal. The origin of the species was on Sardinia. Starting from there, a first expansion to Algeria and then to France took place. Abiotic and zoochorous dispersal could be excluded by considering the species' life style, leaving only anthropogenic translocation as parsimonious explanation. The geographic expansion could be dated to approximately 8,000 years before present with a 95% confidence interval of 10,000 to 3,000 years before present.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This period coincides with the Neolithic expansion in the Western Mediterranean, suggesting a role of these settlers as vectors. Our findings thus propose that non-domesticated animals and plants may give hints on the direction and timing of early human expansion routes.
authors: Institute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.
authors: Ruth
authors: R
authors: Jesse
authors: Errol
authors: E
authors: Véla
authors: Markus
authors: M
authors: Pfenninger
mesh_terms: D025041:Animal Migration / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D020029:Base Pairing / Q000235:genetics; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D003710:Demography; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000235:genetics; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D019083:Mediterranean Region; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D012908:Snails / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV