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<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:contributor>Nathan A. Johnson</dc:contributor>
  <dc:contributor>Michael M. Gangloff</dc:contributor>
  <dc:creator>Michael A. Perkins</dc:creator>
  <dc:date>2017</dc:date>
  <dc:description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Despite being common in numerous marine bivalve lineages, lateral spines are extremely rare among freshwater bivalves (Bivalvia: Unionidae), with only three known species characterized by the presence of spines: &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Elliptio spinosa, Elliptio steinstansana&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;, and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Pleurobema collina&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;. All three taxa are endemic to the Atlantic Slope of southeastern North America, critically endangered, and protected by the US Endangered Species Act. Currently, these species are recognized in two genera and remain a source of considerable taxonomic confusion. Because spines are rare in freshwater mussels and restricted to a small region of North America, we hypothesized that spinymussels represent a monophyletic group. We sequenced two mtDNA gene fragments (&lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;COI&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;ND1&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;) and a fragment of the nuclear &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;ITS-1&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; locus from &amp;gt;70 specimens. Bayesian and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic reconstructions suggest that the spinymussels do not comprise a monophyletic group. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Elliptio steinstansana&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; is sister to &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;P. collina&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;, forming a monophyletic clade that was estimated to have diverged from its most recent ancestor in the late Miocene and is distinct from both &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Elliptio&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; and &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Pleurobema&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;; we describe a new genus (&lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Parvaspina&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; gen. nov.) to reflect this relationship. Additionally, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;E. spinosa&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; forms a monophyletic clade that diverged from members of the core &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;Elliptio&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; lineage in the mid-Pliocene. Furthermore, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;i class="EmphasisTypeItalic "&gt;E. spinosa&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt; is genetically divergent from the other spinymussel species, suggesting that spines, while extremely rare in freshwater mussels worldwide, may have evolved independently in two bivalve lineages. Recognizing the genetic distinctiveness and inter-generic relationships of the spinymussels is an important first step towards effectively managing these imperiled species and lays the groundwork for future conservation genetics studies.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</dc:description>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:identifier>10.1007/s10592-017-0924-z</dc:identifier>
  <dc:language>en</dc:language>
  <dc:publisher>Springer</dc:publisher>
  <dc:title>Molecular systematics of the critically-endangered North American spinymussels (Unionidae: &lt;i&gt;Elliptio&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;Pleurobema&lt;/i&gt;) and description of &lt;i&gt;Parvaspina&lt;/i&gt; gen. nov.</dc:title>
  <dc:type>article</dc:type>
</oai_dc:dc>