Into-India or out-of-India? Historical biogeography of the freshwater gastropod genus Pila (Caenogastropoda: Ampullariidae)

Abstract

Abstract The biota of the Indian subcontinent was assembled through multiple associations with various landmasses during a period spanning the Late Cretaceous to the present. It consists of Gondwanan elements that subsequently dispersed ‘out-of-India’ and biota that dispersed ‘into-India’ after the subcontinent collided with Asia. However, the relative contribution of these connections to the current biotic assembly of the subcontinent has been under-explored. Our aim here was to understand the relative importance of these various routes of biotic assembly in India by studying the historical biogeography of the tropical Old World freshwater snail genus Pila. We reconstructed a near-complete phylogeny, based on nuclear and mitochondrial markers, of Ampullariidae including all the described Pila species from India and Ampullariids worldwide. Thereafter, molecular dating and ancestral range estimation analyses were carried out to ascertain the time frame and route of colonization of India by Pila. The results showed that Pila dispersed into India as well as other parts of tropical Asia from Africa after both India and Africa collided with Eurasia. Furthermore, multiple dispersals took place between Southeast Asia and India. These findings corroborate increasing evidence that much of the current Indian assemblage of biota actually dispersed ‘into-India’ after it collided with Asia.