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Pacific islands, with their incredible biodiversity, are our finest natural laboratories for evolutionary, ecological, and cultural studies. Nowhere, in relation to land area, does land snail diversity reach that of the Pacific islands, with more than 6000 species, most of which are single island endemics. Unfortunately, land snails are the most imperiled group with the most recorded extinctions since the 1500s, and Pacific island snails make up the majority of those extinctions. In 1990, Dr. Alan Solem, a well renowned malacologist, with expertise in Pacific island land snails, posthumously published a plea to save the remaining Hawaiian land snails before they vanish forever. Now, more than 25 years later, we have finally begun to make inroads into answering the questions "How many Hawaiian land snails remain?" and "What will we need to save them?". Here we provide a belated reply to Solem (1990) and address these questions about Hawaiian land snails. We conclude by building on the actions suggested by Solem and that we feel are still needed to realize his hope of conserving Hawaii's remaining land snails specifically, but also our hope of conserving invertebrates more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How biodiversity is changing in our time represents a major concern for all organismal biologists. Anthropogenic changes to our planet are decreasing species diversity through the negative effects of pollution, habitat destruction, direct extirpation of species, and climate change. But major biotic changes—including those that have both increased and decreased species diversity—have happened before in Earth's history. Biodiversity dynamics in past eras provide important context to understand ecological responses to current environmental change. The work of assessing biodiversity is woven into ecology, environmental science, conservation, paleontology, phylogenetics, evolutionary and developmental biology, and many other disciplines; yet, the absolute foundation of how we measure species diversity depends on taxonomy and systematics. The aspiration of this symposium, and complementary contributed talks, was to promote better understanding of our common goals and encourage future interdisciplinary discussion of biodiversity dynamics. The contributions in this collection of papers bring together a diverse group of speakers to confront several important themes. How can biologists best respond to the urgent need to identify and conserve diversity? How can we better communicate the nature of species across scientific disciplines? Where are the major gaps in knowledge about the diversity of living animal and plant groups, and what are the implications for understanding potential diversity loss? How can we effectively use the fossil record of past diversity and extinction to understand current biodiversity loss? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the validity of subspecies designations of the white tern, genetic and morphological data were used to assess differences among four putative Pacific subspecies Gygis alba candida, Gygis alba rothschildi, Gygis alba pacifica, and Gygis alba microrhyncha. The origin(s) of a recent colonization of Oahu was also examined using molecular data. Samples were collected from 209 birds, representing island groups of the North and South Pacific. Culmen length and depth, longest and shortest rectrix lengths, and wing chord measurements from an earlier dataset were compared. Mitochondrial DNA variation suggests that there are no phylogenetically distinct species within the Pacific Ocean. The genetic and morphological similarity of G. a. candida and G. a. rothschildi warrants merging them into one subspecies ( G. a. candida). Gygis alba microrhyncha and G. a. pacifica are distinctly smaller and larger than the other two subspecies, respectively, but are not completely diagnosable across the morphological characters examined. Although the Pacific subspecies do not exhibit reciprocal monophyly, there is significant genetic differentiation among the two South Pacific groups, G. a. microrhyncha, G. a. pacifica, and all other Pacific subspecies. This differentiation warrants treating these two South Pacific groups as separate management units, but not species or subspecies. Finally, the recently established population of white terns on Oahu shared haplotypes with all subspecies, suggesting multiple origins from populations across the Pacific and confirming contemporary gene flow. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 98, 586–595. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]