Evolutionary changes in distantly-related groups often produce outward similarities that can be misinterpreted as evidence of close relationship. Paralellisms, as they are called, can only be discerned by evaluating ancestor-descendant relationships using evidence that is independent of the features in question. PIs propose to collect and analyze 18s ribosomal RNA sequence data for a variety of gastropod taxa. The research goals are: a) construct a phylogeny for the orders of snails, based on molecular data and b) identify parallelisms in the evolution of morphological character complexes. A new molecular phylogeny lab will be established at the California Academy of Sciences for this and future projects. A successful attempt to construct a biochemical phylogeny for the snails would have the widest impact on invertebrate zoology, paleontology and evolutionary thinking in general. There is a vast body of lower-level knowledge of this class, all without a believable phylogenetic framework. The need for and importance of this research is beyond doubt. Establishing a molecular lab at the California Academy of Sciences will benefit not only this research project, but that of other Curators and investigators in the Bay area.
