DOI: 10.5285/482dc331-81c0-4dd1-9d0e-aeeec5442132
title: Inventory of tropical, shallow marine molluscs from twelve regional localities

description: Polar - tropical biodiversity comparisons are becoming essential in order to investigate fully the origin and maintenance of the larger scale patterns of life on Earth. Although many polar data are now readily to hand it is often more difficult to locate accurate and up to date tropical datasets to use in direct comparisons. This dataset represents an attempt to rectify this imbalance using two of the largest clades in shallow tropical seas at the present day. The data were obtained from primary published literature which is fully referenced below and in the companion research paper to this dataset. They relate to twelve regional localities which stretch across the tropical realm from the Indo-West Pacific to the Americas. For each locality there is a full species list, with each species being assigned to both a genus and family. The latest taxonomic references have been used to ensure that all these lists are based on current biological nomenclature.

Funding: 
Partly from NERC grant NE/I005803/1
Partly from BAS core funds
description: Data gathered from primary literature sources and some websites over a number of years. It has been constantly updated and revised by the author. Literature was identified that contained tropical mollusc species information but not through a systematic review.

Regions are classified into the following 9 regions: 
- Western Australia - Essentially the Bonaparte Archipelago (around 14 degrees S) south to approximately 30 degrees S (Crame 2000, table 1).
- Queensland and Northern Territory - Essentially the Darwin area to Brisbane; both offshore reef and coastal faunas included (Crame 2000, table 1).
- East China Sea - East China Sea, Yellow Sea, southern Honshu, Taiwan, Hong Kong (Crame 2000, table 1).
- Indonesia/Philippines - Essentially the Indonesian and Philippinian subprovinces of Petuch & Berschauer (2021, fig, 6.1); see also Crame 2000, table 1. It should be noted that a considerable amount of work remains to be done on the prolific micromollusc fauna from this region, but it is estimated that the total gastropod fauna may well eventually be in excess of 10,000 species (Bouchet 2008).
- Tropical Western Atlantic - Northern limit set as South Carolina (around 35 degrees N) and the southernmost on the South American coast at Guyana (5 degrees N). All principal Caribbean islands included but Gulf of Mexico excluded. Essentially the Caribbean Molluscan Province of Petuch & Berschauer (2021, fig. 2.3).
- Panamic Province - Boundaries as defined in Crame 2000, table 1 and Petuch & Berschauer 2021, fig. 4.3.
- Guam - Coral reef and associated shallow marine habitats surrounding the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. Although mcrogastropods are understudied, the shallow-water marine biota of Guam is the best documented anywhere in Micronesia (Paulay 2003).
- French Polynesia - A total of 1977 gastropod species from 118 volcanic and low coral reef islands includes 491 morphospecies (Trondle and Boutet 2009). Many micromollusc groups still under review.
- New Caledonia - Intensive sampling obtained approximately 3200 gastropod species from less than 100m water depth, many of which are tiny, rare, and yet to be formally described (Bouchet et al. 2002; Heros et al. 2007).
description: Continual checks until publication to ensure that the latest taxonomic names and classifications are included.