Robert H. Cowie

PhD University of Liverpool (Zoology), 1982

Associate Researcher, Center for Conservation Research and Training (PBRC)

phone: (808) 956-4909

cowie@hawaii.edu

www2.hawaii.edu/~cowie

www.hawaii.edu/eecb/eecb_faculty/fac_pages/robertcowie.html

www2.bishopmuseum.org/PBS/samoasnail/

Evolution and conservation of non-marine snails; alien species

[publications] [graduate students]

Evolutionary biology includes many sub-disciplines, from systematics and ecology to behavior and population genetics. My research on snails has touched on all these fields; currently it falls into a number of interrelated areas with an increasing conservation focus.

Biodiversity

I am interested in patterns of diversity in the Pacific. What ecological factors influence distribution patterns? What determines numbers of species on islands? What are the geographic and phylogenetic origins of Pacific island snails?

Conservation and alien species

Most native Pacific island land snail species are already extinct; the remainder are almost all severely threatened. Alien species are rapidly replacing them. What is the trajectory of this faunal homogenization? What are its impacts?.

Apple snails as model invasive species

Some alien species have agricultural as well as ecological impacts. Freshwater “apple snails” are now major rice pests in south-east Asia and taro pests in Hawai‘i. The pest species are South American in origin, but we do not know their specific identity nor their exact geographical provenience. What causes them to be so invasive? What are their potential ecological impacts?

Evolution of snail shell shape

Most snail species coil to the right, yet some coil to the left, and some (especially in the Pacific) are polymorphic for coil directions. Why? The answer seems tied to mating differences between species of different shapes. And are right-handed snails of a particular species exact mirror images of left-handed ones? No they are not; but why not?Evolutionary biology is made up of a range of sub-disciplines from systematics and ecology to behavior and population genetics. My research on snails has touched on all these fields; currently it falls into a number of somewhat discrete but interrelated areas.

[return to top]

Representative publications:

Cowie RH. in press. Decline and homogenization of Pacific faunas: the land snails of American Samoa. Biological Conservation (in press).

Cowie RH. in press. Can snails ever be effective and safe biocontrol agents? Inter J Pest Management (in press)

Cowie RH, Cook RP. in press. Extinction or survival: partulid tree snails in American Samoa. Biodiv Conserv (in press).

Lach L, Britton DK, Rundell RJ, Cowie RH. in press. Food preference and reproductive plasticity in an invasive freshwater snail. Biol Invasions (in press).

Cowie RH. in press. Apple snails as agricultural pests: their biology, impacts and management. In: Barker GM, editor. Molluscs as Crop Pests. Wallingford (UK): CAB International.

Asami T, Cowie RH, Ohbayashi K. 1998. Evolution of mirror images by sexually asymmetric mating behavior in hermaphroditic snails. Am Nat 152:225-236.

Cowie RH. 1998. Patterns of introduction of non-indigenous non-marine snails and slugs in the Hawaiian islands. Biodiv Conserv 7:349-368.

Cowie RH. 1996. Variation in species diversity and shell shape in Hawaiian land snails: in situ speciation and ecological relationships. Evol 49:1191-1202

[return to top]

Current students:

Rebecca Rundell (MS): evolution of Hawaiian succineid land snails

[return to top]

[Zoology home] [undergraduate] [graduate] [faculty] [UH home]

Last update: 5 December 2000
email web queries or suggestions to web@zoology.hawaii.edu

The University of Hawai`i is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution.