Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Punctoidea (Gastropoda, Stylommatophora)

A phylogenetic analysis using a combination of mitochondrial (COI, 16S) and nuclear markers (ITS2, 28S) indicated that Punctoidea, as previously interpreted, is polyphyletic. It comprises two main groups, containing northern hemisphere (Laurasian) and predominantly southern hemisphere (Gondwanan) taxa respectively, treated here as separate superfamilies. Within Punctoidea sensu stricto, Punctidae, Cystopeltidae and Endodontidae form separate monophyletic clades, but Charopidae, as currently interpreted, is paraphyletic. Most of the charopid taxa that we sequenced, including Charopa coma (Gray, 1843) and other Charopinae, grouped in a clade with Punctidae but some charopid taxa from Australia and South America grouped with Cystopeltidae. Cystopeltidae previously contained a single Australia-endemic genus, Cystopelta Tate, 1881, but our analysis suggests that it is considerably more diverse taxonomically and has a much wider distribution. For taxonomic stability, we suggest that Charopidae be retained as a family-level group for now, pending further study of the systematic relationships of its constituent taxa. A new superfamily, Discoidea, is erected here for two Northern Hemisphere families, Discidae and Oreohelicidae, which were previously assigned to Punctoidea. The North American species Radiodomus abietum, previously in Charopidae, is also here assigned to Discoidea. The phylogenetic relationships of Helicodiscidae, previously assigned to Punctoidea, were not fully resolved in our analysis, but the family is apparently closely related to Arionoidea Gray, 1840 and infraorder Limacoidei