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UID:20100326T230000-331@amentsoc.org
SUMMARY:Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland AGM
LOCATION:Dorothea Bate Room, The Natural History Museum, London, UK
DESCRIPTION: Presidential Address by Sebastian Payne - Australian shells and the colonisation of Lord Howe Island. The shell fauna of Australia is, by British standards, very diverse. Most families with which we are familiar from European waters are also found round Australia, though the genera and species are usually rather different, and diversity is generally higher. But there are also many representatives of much less familiar tropical Pacific families. Lord Howe Island is a volcanic island about 400 km NE of Sydney; it emerged about 7 million years ago, and is surrounded by water over 1000 m deep. The shell fauna of Lord Howe Island casts light on how shells spread. Some families present on Lord Howe Island show high diversity and share many species with the Queensland coast, the Barrier Reef and New Caledonia. These clearly have no problem colonising distant islands provided suitable habitats are available. Others, however, show much lower diversity, and many of the species in these families are found nowhere else. These families are presumably less good at colonising distant islands, probably because their larvae settle more rapidly.
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