Objective: To identify the species classification of an ornamental Planorbidae from a flower market in Shanghai and analyze its potential distribution in China.
Methods: In August 2013, six freshwater snail specimens were collected from the Wanshang flower market. The species was identified by morphology and molecular biology. An ecological niche model was constructed based on the native geographic presence occurrence data, and projected onto the whole of China to predict the potential distribution.
Results: Their shell external morphology suggested that the specimens belonged to Planorbella trivolvis (Say 1817) of Planorbidae, which is native in North America. The sequence data of a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) confirmed its identification. A total of 2 294 georeferenced occurrence points in North America were carried out from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility databases and 614 records with coordinates were used to produce a North American native niche model by a maximum entropy method (Maxent). The projection on China results suggested high probabilities of occurrence mostly in Henan Province and its borderland with nearby provinces.
Conclusions: P. trivolvis is similarly with Biomphalaria species from shell morphology. It is the first records of the species in China, and the field dispersal is not clear.