Cepaea

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Genus of gastropods

title: "Cepaea" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["helicidae", "gastropod-genera", "model-organisms", "ecological-genetics", "polymorphism-(biology)"] description: "Genus of gastropods" topic_path: "science/biology" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepaea" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Genus of gastropods ::

|image = Cepaea.hortensis.jpg |image_caption = White-lipped snail Cepaea hortensis |display_parents = 3 |taxon = Cepaea |authority = Held, 1838 |type_species = Helix nemoralis |type_species_authority = Linnaeus, 1758 |synonyms_ref = |synonyms =

  • Cepaea (Cepaea) Held, 1838
  • Helix (Tachea) W. Turton, 1831 (Invalid: junior homonym of Tachea Fleming, 1822 [Aves])
  • Hystrionica Scudder, 1882

Cepaea is a genus of large air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs in the family Helicidae. The shells are often brightly coloured and patterned with brown stripes. The two living species in this genus, C. nemoralis and C. hortensis, are widespread and common in Western and Central Europe. In North America, C. hortensis is native on the northeast coast, but both species have been introduced elsewhere, and they are also spreading further east in Europe. Both have been influential model species for ongoing studies of genetics and natural selection. Like many Helicidae, these snails use love darts during mating.

Species

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Cepaea_hortensis_and_Cepaea_vindobonensis.jpg" caption="doi-access=free }}"] ::

Interspecific relations

The range of C. hortensis extends further north than that of C. nemoralis in Scotland and Scandinavia and it is the only one of the two species in Iceland and the only one native to North America. Likewise in the Swiss Alps C. hortensis is found as high as 2050 m, but C. nemoralis only up to 1600 m. Conversely, the southern edge of the range lies further north in C. hortensis; unlike C. nemoralis it does not occur in Italy, and in Spain it has a more restricted distribution (in the north-east corner).

Where the ranges overlap C. hortensis prefers cooler sites with longer and damper vegetation. But the two species often co-occur at a site, in which situation the densities of both affect each other's growth, fecundity and mortality. However, they differ somewhat in their behaviour: C. hortensis is more active at lower temperatures, aestivates higher on the vegetation and is more diurnal, although this appears to be independent of whether the other species is present or not.

When given no choice of partner in the laboratory, the two Cepaea species can form hybrids, which will backcross with the parental species, but the fertility is very low.

Shell polymorphism

Description and genetics

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Grove_snail_Cepaea_nemoralis,_showing_colour_and_banding_polymorphism.jpg" caption="''Cepaea nemoralis'', showing colour and banding polymorphisms]]The two ''Cepaea'' species share a [[genetic polymorphism]] for the colour and banding pattern of the shell."] ::

The background colour of the shell ranges from dark brown, through pink to yellow or even approaching white. This variation is continuous, but there are peaks in the distribution corresponding to brown, pink and yellow morphs. The colour is mainly determined by alleles at a single locus with brown dominant to pink, which is dominant to yellow.

Up to five bands (very rarely more) run spirally around the shell, numbered 1 to 5 with the larger numbers further from the shell apex. The conventional scoring annotation is to write 12345 if all bands are present and separated, but to replace a number with 0 if a band is absent from its usual position and to enclose numbers in parentheses if bands are fused with their neighbours. Thus 003(45) would mean that the top two bands are absent and the lower two fused.

A dominant allele at one locus causes the absence of all bands, a dominant allele at another locus causes the loss of all bands except band 3, and a dominant allele at a third locus causes the loss of just bands 1 and 2. The first of these three loci is closely linked to the locus determining shell colour, to another influencing the spread of the band pigment, and to one determining the colour of the lip and bands. This collection of linked loci are part of a supergene. A consequence of this arrangement is that the shells of different background colours within a population often exhibit different ratios of banded to unbanded shells: this is an example of linkage disequilibrium.

The bands are usually dark brown, but this is affected by genes influencing intensity and colouration (e.g. black or orange). Another locus (part of the supergene) determines whether the band is continuous or forms a sequence of spots. The genetics underlying the fusion of adjacent bands is not well understood.

Evolutionary explanations

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Proportion_yellow_Cepaea_nemoralis_Silvertown2011.png" caption="doi=10.1146/annurev.es.08.110177.000545}}"] ::

The two selection pressures that might most feasibly act on the appearance of shells are climatic selection and predation. Darker shells heat up more quickly in the sun, which might well be advantageous for cold-blooded animals in shaded woodland but risks causing overheating and death in open habitats. This trade-off is also presumed to be responsible for the greater proportion of yellow C. nemoralis to the south, but it is curious why the trend is not present in C. hortensis. The use of photosensitive paint has shown that paler morphs spend more time exposed to the sun, which may imply that the shell polymorphism allows different morphs to coexist at a site by occupying different microhabitats.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/The_anvil_stone_of_a_thrush_-geograph.org.uk-_1751348.jpg" caption="pmc=3753478 }}"] ::

Several studies have demonstrated a predicted evolutionary response of shell appearance to a change of habitat. However, the association of shell appearance and habitat is not always consistent, especially in more disturbed environments, so it is believed that random effects are also influential, particularly founder effects. The two Cepaea species colonised much of Europe only within the last 4000 generations, so the time available for selection to act has been limited, and local anthropogenetic disturbances must often have reversed which morphs are optimal. Moreover, snails disperse more slowly than many other animals, so the most suitable genes may be locally absent.

For instance, biologists were at one time puzzled by the phenomenon of "area effects"; the same morph of Cepaea may be found consistently over a wide area but in adjacent areas of similar habitat a different set of morphs predominate instead, with a sharp transition between. The explanation accepted nowadays is that relatively recently a change of habitat allowed the rapid colonisation of vacant areas by descendants of a few founder individuals until the colony had expanded out to areas occupied by other populations; subsequently intraspecific competition slowed the dispersal of genes into the neighbouring, occupied areas. Nevertheless, occasional transfer of genes between areas of different habitat is proposed to be important in maintaining the local diversity of phenotypes.

References

References

  1. Held, F.. (1838). "Notizen über die Weichthiere Bayerns. (Fortsetzung)". Isis (Leipzig).
  2. (27 September 2021). "Introduced land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis'' (Gastropoda: Helicidae) in Eastern Europe: spreading history and the shell colouration variability". Malacologica Bohemoslovaca.
  3. Robert Nordsieck. "Banded Snails (''Cepaea'' Held 1838)". The Living World of Molluscs.
  4. (2015). "Molecular phylogeny reveals the polyphyly of the snail genus ''Cepaea'' (Gastropoda: Helicidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
  5. (2016). "Increasing the number of molecular markers resolves the phylogenetic relationship of "''Cepaea''" ''vindobonensis'' (Pfeiffer 1828) with ''Caucasotachea'' Boettger 1909 (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Helicidae)". Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research.
  6. "''Cepaea'' Held, 1838". Flanders Marine Institute.
  7. (February 1976). "Polymorphism in relation to habitat in the snail ''Cepaea hortensis'' in Iceland.". Journal of Zoology.
  8. (12 February 2009). "Colour polymorphism in northern peripheral populations of ''Cepaea hortensis''". Hereditas.
  9. (10 August 2010). "Land snails from St. Elzear cave, Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec: antiquity of ''Cepaea hortensis'' in North America.". Annals of Carnegie Museum.
  10. (1998). "Atlas der Mollusken der Schweiz und Liechtensteins". CentreSuisse de cartographie de la faune.
  11. (2016). "Caracoles y babosas de la Península Ibérica y Baleares". Omega.
  12. "Checklist of the Italian Fauna On-line version 2.1". Ministry of Environment, Directorate-General for Nature and Sea Protection (PNM).
  13. (1987). "Ecological interactions between ''Cepaea nemoralis'' and ''Cepaea hortensis'': competition, invasion but no niche displacement". Functional Ecology.
  14. (1908). "Über die Bastarde von ''Helix hortensis'' Müller und ''Helix nemoralis'' L. Eine Untersuchung zur experimentellen Vererbungslehre". Fischer.
  15. (August 2019). "Discrete or indiscrete? Redefining the colour polymorphism of the land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis''". Heredity.
  16. Cain, A.J.. (1988). "The scoring of polymorphic colour and pattern variation and its genetic basis in molluscan shells". Malacologia.
  17. (1971). "Ecological genetics and evolution". Blackwell.
  18. (22 May 1992). "Change and stability in ''Cepaea'' populations over 25 years: a case of climatic selection". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.
  19. (November 1977). "Polymorphism in ''Cepaea'': a problem with too many solutions?". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.
  20. (February 1974). "Differential climatic selection in natural population of land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis''". Nature.
  21. (October 1991). "Activity and weight loss in relation to solar radiation in the polymorphic land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis''". Journal of Zoology.
  22. (27 April 2011). "Citizen science reveals unexpected continental-scale evolutionary change in a model organism". PLOS ONE.
  23. (August 1982). "Genetic differences in individual behaviour associated with shell polymorphism in the snail ''Cepaea nemoralis''". Nature.
  24. (May 2012). "Habitat and the shell polymorphism of ''Cepaea nemoralis'' (L.): interrogating the Evolution Megalab database". Journal of Molluscan Studies.
  25. (April 1951). "Fluctuations in the selective value of certain phenotypes in the polymorphic land snail ''Cepæa nemoralis'' (L.)". Heredity.
  26. (June 1991). "Apostatic selection by song thrushes (''Turdus philomelos'') feeding on the snail ''Cepaea hortensis''". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
  27. (September 2013). "Differential shell strength of ''Cepaea nemoralis'' colour morphs—implications for their anti-predator defence". Naturwissenschaften.
  28. (February 2011). "Rapid evolution in unstable habitats: a success story of the polymorphic land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis'' (Gastropoda: Pulmonata)". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
  29. (29 October 1998). "A two–stage model for ''Cepaea'' polymorphism". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.
  30. (November 1980). "''Cepaea'' on Salisbury Plain: patterns of variation, landscape history and habitat stability". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
  31. (22 July 2000). "History or current selection? A molecular analysis of 'area effects' in the land snail ''Cepaea nemoralis''". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.
  32. (1984). "Habitat stability, population histories and patterns of variation in ''Cepaea''". Malacologia.

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helicidaegastropod-generamodel-organismsecological-geneticspolymorphism-(biology)