Do gastropod abundances and distributions vary in relation to primary productivity and site complexity? Student: Brittany Huntington Mentor:

Population ecology incorporates a variety of foundational tenets that aid in understanding community structure and biodiversity of organisms in the natural world. For example, it has been observed that increasing the habitat and environmental complexity is correlated with increasing species diversity (Rosenzweig, 1995). Lake Tanganyika, in central East Africa, represents an ideal system to test this canon. The rocky littoral zone of Lake Tanganyika supports a highly diverse ecosystem, including numerous species of the endemic gastropod clade Lavigeria. Although Lavigeria is the most common gastropod on the rock surfaces and the focal organism of several studies examining sedimentation, speciation, and predation, the diversity and abundance patterns of this species flock remain poorly understood (Michel et al., 2003).