DISTRIBUTION AND CONSERVATION STATUS OF FRESHWATER BIVALVIA (UNIONIDA, MYTILIDA, VENERIDA) IN ARGENTINA

TORRES, SANTIAGO; DARRIGRAN, GUSTAVO

Tentacle

International Union for Conservation of Nature. Mollusc Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission

Lugar: Honolulu; Año: 2019 vol. 27 p. 19 - 21

0958-5079

There are about 60 species of freshwater bivalves recorded in Argentina. Of these, 32 are in the order Unionida (naiads) and 28 in the orders Venerida and Mytilida. As a group they range from northern Argentina (23°9´ S, 64°19´ W) in the malacological province of Middle Paraná to Tierra del Fuego (54°50´ S, 68°16´ W) in the malacological province of Southern Patagonia. The study of freshwater mussels in Argentina started in the mid 20th century with the works of various Argentinean malacologists (e.g. A. Bonetto and Z. Ageitos de Castellanos). However, most of the publications by Argentinean researcherson Unionida were produced in the 1970s and 1980s. With the aim of assessing unionidan distributions and evaluating the conservation status of the species of the order in Argentina, we started gathering and updating the informationavailable. Analysis of databases of malacological collections deposited in museums is a particularly important step in the investigation of the geographical and temporal distributions of native freshwater bivalve species.