Islands have traditionally been the centre of evolutionary biological research, but the dynamics of immigration and differentiation at continental islands have not been well studied. Therefore, we focused on the Japanese archipelago, the continental islands located at the eastern end of the Eurasian continent. While the Japanese archipelago is characterised by high biodiversity and rich freshwater habitats, the origin and formation mechanisms of its freshwater organisms are not clear. In order to clarify the history of the planorbid gastropod fauna, we conducted phylogenetic analysis, divergence time estimation, ancestral state reconstruction, and lineage diversity estimations. Our analyses revealed the formation process of the planorbid fauna in the Japanese archipelago. Most lineages in the Japanese archipelago have closely related lineages on the continent, and the divergence within the Japanese lineages presumably occurred after the late Pliocene. In addition, each lineage is characterised by different phylogeographical patterns, suggesting that immigration routes from the continent to the Japanese archipelago differ among lineages. Furthermore, a regional lineage diversity plot showed that the present diversity in the Japanese archipelago potentially reflects the differentiation of lineages within the islands after the development of the Japanese archipelago. Although additional taxon sampling and genetic analysis focused on each lineage are needed, our results suggest that immigration from multiple routes just prior to the development of the Japanese archipelago and subsequent diversification within the islands are major causes of the present-day diversity of the Japanese planorbid fauna.

Mongolia has globally significant biodiversity and pastoral traditions, and scarce water resources on which wildlife and people depend. Rapid growth of the mining sector is a threat to water resources and specifically river riparian zones. Mongolia has passed progressive laws for water and habitat conservation, including establishment of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and river basin governance organizations, and laws protecting the river riparian zone, but implementation has been hindered by limited technical capacity and data-scarcity, specifically because consistent, accurate maps of the riparian zone did not exist. To address this gap, WWF-Mongolia and partners developed a national delineation of riparian areas based on a spatial model, then validated this with local river basin authorities and provincial governments to designate legal protection zones. As a result, 8.2 million hectares of water protection zones including riparian areas have been legally protected from mining and industrial development in the globally significant landscapes and riverscapes of the Amur, Yenisey, and Ob Rivers headwaters, the Altai Sayan ecoregion, and the Gobi-Steppe ecosystem. These findings demonstrate a pathway for implementing broad-scale, durable legal protection of riverine wetlands through a data-driven, participatory process.