GENETIC DIFFERENTIATION AND SHELL MORPHOLOGY OF (WAGNER, 1915) AND (LINNAEUS, 1758) (PULMONATA: HYGROMIIDAE) IN THE NORTHEASTERN ALPS.

and are two land snail taxa endemic to the Northeastern Austrian Alps, which have been regarded as subspecies of the highly variable, widespread land snail . We analysed these three taxa morphologically and genetically to evaluate whether a delimitation between them is possible and, if so, to resolve their phylogenetic relationships. Shell morphological results revealed high similarity between the two taxa, and that they are clearly separated from . Additionally, the subspecies concur with respect to their habitat preferences, as they are both restricted to rocky high alpine areas, whereas the local form of is distributed over a wider altitudinal range in moist areas and scrubby perennial herb vegetation near water bodies. While the morphological and ecological results allow clear differentiation between and only, analyses of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I and 16S rRNA genes revealed high sequence divergences between all three taxa, which indicates that they represent old lineages. The two taxa appear as distantly related sister groups, well separated from . Whether and should be considered as species cannot be decided at the current state of knowledge.