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Gastropoda are an exceptionally successful group with a rich and diverse fossil record. They have conquered land and freshwater habitats multiple times independently and have dispersed across the entire globe. Since they are important constituents of fossil assemblages, they are often used for palaeoecological reconstruction, biostratigraphic correlations, and as model groups to study morphological and taxonomic evolution. While marine faunas and their evolution have been a common subject of study, the freshwater component of the fossil record has attracted much less attention, and a global overview is lacking. Here, I review the fossil record of freshwater gastropods on a global scale, ranging from their origins in the late Palaeozoic to the Pleistocene. As compiled here, the global fossil record of freshwater Gastropoda includes 5182 species in 490 genera, 44 families, and 12 superfamilies over a total of ~340 million years. Following a slow and poorly known start in the late Palaeozoic, diversity slowly increased during the Mesozoic. Diversity culminated in an all‐time high in the Neogene, relating to diversification in numerous long‐lived (ancient) lakes in Europe. I summarise well‐documented and hypothesised freshwater colonisation events and compare the patterns found in freshwater gastropods to those in land snails. Furthermore, I discuss potential preservation and sampling biases, as well as the main drivers underlying species diversification in fresh water on a larger scale. In that context, I particularly highlight the importance of long‐lived lakes as islands and archives of evolution and expand a well‐known concept in ecology and evolution to a broader spectrum: scale‐independent ecological opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mesozoic rise of the European freshwater gastropod fauna is still poorly understood. Compared to the well documented Cenozoic history, little is known about the patterns and processes underlying the early diversification preceding their extinction crisis at the K–Pg boundary. We assess what is probably a first pulse of diversification of the Cenozoic-type fauna in the Late Cretaceous along with the potential abiotic and biotic controls for shifts in species diversification. We find strong support that the increase in the speciation rate in the Santonian (~ 85 Myr ago) is linked to a global sea level rise, which caused extensive flooding of continental areas and the formation of vast brackish-water ecosystems. The following decline of the speciation rate coincides with a rise in diversity and reflects increasing interspecific competition. The peak in the speciation rate postdates the Cenomanian–Turonian Thermal Maximum, which probably limited the potential for diversification among freshwater gastropods due to ecological constraints. The peak coincides moreover with the end phase of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, which sparked the radiation of angiosperms. The expansion and diversification of flowering plants, being an important food source for freshwater gastropods today, could have formed a necessary basis for gastropod diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well documented fossil record of European Quaternary freshwater gastropods offers a unique resource for continental-scale biogeographical analyses. Here, we assembled a dataset including 338 freshwater gastropod taxa from 1058 localities across Europe, which we used to explore how freshwater gastropod communities varied in space and time across six distinct time intervals of the Quaternary, i.e. Gelasian, Calabrian, Middle Pleistocene, Last Interglacial, Last Glacial and Holocene. We took into consideration both species richness and qualitative structural patterns, comparing turnover rates between time intervals and examining variations in community nestedness-segregation patterns. Species richness differed significantly between time intervals. The Early Pleistocene showed the highest diversity, likely because of the contribution of long-lived aquatic systems like the lakes Bresse and Tiberino that promoted speciation and endemism. The rich Middle to Late Pleistocene and Holocene assemblages were mostly linked to fluvial and/or lacustrine systems with short temporal durations. We identified a major turnover event at the Plio-Pleistocene boundary, related to the demise of long-lived lakes and of their rich, endemic faunas at the end of the Pliocene. In the subsequent intervals, little or no turnover was observed. We also observed a pattern of high segregation in Early Pleistocene communities, associated with the abundance of endemic species with small distribution ranges, and reflecting the provincial character of the aquatic freshwater systems at that time. This structured pattern disintegrated gradually towards the Middle Pleistocene and remained unstructured up to present. In particular, spatial patterns of community nestedness-segregation in the Last Interglacial and Holocene suggest a random recolonization of freshwater habitats mostly by generalist species following deglaciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of a new database project on Miocene to Recent freshwater gastropods of Europe, a great many of primary and secondary homonyms were revealed. Such nomenclatural issues need clarification in order to avoid misunderstandings and wrong statements about geographical distributions and temporal ranges. The following 16 new names are introduced to replace existing homonyms: Theodoxus militaris jurisicpolsakae nom. n., Viviparus stevanovici nom. n., Melanopsis haueri ripanjensis nom. n., Melanopsis wolfgangfischeri nom. n., Micromelania ramacanensis nom. n., Pseudamnicola welterschultesi nom. n., Muellerpalia haszprunari nom. n., Muellerpalia pseudovalvatoides nom. n., Lithoglyphus gozhiki nom. n., Valvata heidemariae willmanni nom. n., Radix macaleti nom. n., Gyraulus okrugljakensis nom. n., Gyraulus rasseri nom. n., Gyraulus vrapceanus nom. n., Planorbarius halavatsi nom. n., and Segmentina mosbachensis nom. n. Additionally, six cases of homonyms are discussed that are not replaced by new names, because they are considered junior synonyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present a complete list of all valid species-group taxa of freshwater gastropods reported from Miocene and Pliocene deposits in Europe. The last comparable work dates back to the 1920s and covered about 1,600 names. The extensive literature research underlying the present work revealed considerable changes in the taxonomic and systematic frameworks of Neogene freshwater gastropods and yielded a total number of 2,156 accepted taxa. Each taxon is accompanied by a full citation of its first description; where the information is available, page number and illustration reference are provided. First descriptions available as open-access full-text sources on the web were linked via hyperlink to the first page of the publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a critical review of the fossil record of Cenozoic terrestrial gastropods of Europe utilizing a literature-based dataset comprising 1640 species from 609 sites. Net diversity (expressed as species, genus and family richness) and β-diversity (as species, genus and family turnover) reveal several major disruptive phases. Turnovers occurred at the Ypresian–Lutetian and Eocene–Oligocene boundaries, and extinction events took place at the Oligocene–Miocene, Burdigalian–Langhian and Pliocene–Pleistocene boundaries. These biotic shifts correlate largely with global climatic events such as the Ypresian–Lutetian transition from Hothouse to Warmhouse, the Oi-1 glaciation at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary and with the onset of the Pleistocene glacials at the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary. Phases of diversification during the Lutetian, Burdigalian and Pliocene seem to be linked to phases of relative climate stability. At least five immigration events are reflected by the appearance of exotic elements in European faunas during the Ypresian, Bartonian, Rupelian, Burdigalian and Langhian. Many of them correlate with the formation of terrestrial pathways and major migration events in mammals. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the stratigraphic ranges of families and genera in the European fossil record and discuss the timing of the first appearances of extant genera and species, setting important constraints for future molecular phylogenies. Pfefferiola nov. nom. pro Oppenheimiella Pfeffer, 1930, non Meunier, 1893, Hochheimia nov. nom. pro Palaeotrichia Nordsieck, 2014, non Guinot, 1976 and "Gibbulinella " sandbergeri nov. nom. pro Pupa simplex Sandberger, 1870, non Gould, 1840 are introduced as new replacement names. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Miocene Climate Optimum (MCO, ~ 17-14 Ma) was a time of extraordinary marine biodiversity in the Circum-Mediterranean Region. This boom is best recorded in the deposits of the vanished Central Paratethys Sea, which covered large parts of central to southeastern Europe. This sea harbored an extraordinary tropical to subtropical biotic diversity. Here, we present a georeferenced dataset of 859 gastropod species and discuss geodynamics and climate as the main drivers to explain the changes in diversity. The tectonic reorganization around the Early/Middle Miocene boundary resulted in the formation of an archipelago-like landscape and favorable conditions of the MCO allowed the establishment of coral reefs. Both factors increased habitat heterogeneity, which boosted species richness. The subsequent cooling during the Middle Miocene Climate Transition (~ 14-13 Ma) caused a drastic decline in biodiversity of about 67%. Among the most severely hit groups were corallivorous gastropods, reflecting the loss of coral reefs. Deep-water faunas experienced a loss by 57% of the species due to changing patterns in circulation. The low sea level led to a biogeographic fragmentation reflected in higher turnover rates. The largest turnover occurred with the onset of the Sarmatian when bottom water dysoxia eradicated the deep-water fauna whilst surface waters-dwelling planktotrophic species underwent a crisis., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Continental aquatic species richness hotspots are unevenly distributed across the planet. In present-day Europe, only two centers of biodiversity exist (Lake Ohrid on the Balkans and the Caspian Sea). During the Neogene, a wide variety of hotspots developed in a series of long-lived lakes. The mechanisms underlying the presence of richness hotspots in different geological periods have not been properly examined thus far. Based on Miocene to Recent gastropod distributions, we show that the existence and evolution of such hotspots in inland-water systems are tightly linked to the geodynamic history of the European continent. Both past and present hotspots are related to the formation and persistence of long-lived lake systems in geological basins or to isolation of existing inland basins and embayments from the marine realm. The faunal evolution within hotspots highly depends on warm climates and surface area. During the Quaternary icehouse climate and extensive glaciations, limnic biodiversity sustained a severe decline across the continent and most former hotspots disappeared. The Recent gastropod distribution is mainly a geologically young pattern formed after the Last Glacial Maximum (19 ky) and subsequent formation of postglacial lakes. The major hotspots today are related to long-lived lakes in preglacially formed, permanently subsiding geological basins.