Short Communication: Mollusks biodiversity of Lake Sevan, Armenia

Abstract

Mashkova IV, Krupnova TG, Kostryukova AM, Harutyunova LJ, Varuzhan HS, Egorov NO. 2018. Short Communication:Mollusks biodiversity of Lake Sevan, Armenia. Biodiversitas 19: 1509-1513. The paper considers mollusks biodiversity in the freshwaterlakes of Lake Sevan, Armenia. Lake Sevan is the largest water body in Armenia and one of the largest freshwater lakes in Eurasia. Since1930 it has been actively used for irrigating Ararat plain and in hydropower. So, its water level fell by 20 m, and its volume became40% less. Since mid-2000 when two tunnels had been built water level started to grow. For the last 6 years, water level was reported togrow. As a result of our study, 11 aquatic mollusks species (10 gastropod and 1 bivalve taxa) were currently found living in the Sevanlake. We found Lymnaea stagnalis (Linnaeus, 1758), Radix auricularia (Linnaeus, 1758), R. tumida (Held, 1836), R. balthica(Linnaeus, 1758), R. lagotis (Schrank, 1803), Galba truncatula (O. F. Müller, 1774), Planorbis planorbis (Linnaeus, 1758),Bathyomphalus contortus (Linnaeus,1758), Gyraulus acronicus (Férussac, 1807), Valvata piscinalis (O. F. Müller, 1774), Euglesacasertana (Poli,

Species diversity and DNA barcode library of freshwater Molluscs of South Caucasus

“…The check-list of freshwater molluscs species for the South Caucasus or any separate country within it is more than 50 years old and completely outdated ( Zhadin 1952 , Javelidze 1973 , Akramowski 1976 ). While a number of papers have appeared during the last three decades providing information on the taxonomy and systematics of separate taxa (given below), only three articles have been published reporting the field research-based inventory results of all freshwater molluscs of a particular area: for Sevan Lake in Armenia ( Mashkova et al 2018 ), Javakheti region of Georgia - Bikashvili et al (2021) and Kazbegi Municipality in Georgia - Neiber et al (2021) . Thus, it is clear that the current knowledge of freshwater molluscs species diversity and distribution in the South Caucasus region remains far from being comprehensive.…”

An update to the 2014 nomenclator of Valvatidae

“…Between both localities is a distance of more than 150 km. The Lagodekhi record belongs to Caspicyclotus sieversi .... ( Cyclophoridae )…..The other lot, however, seems to belong to Valvata piscinalis , which is known to occur in Lake Sevan (e.g., Mashkova et al 2018 )”.…”