4. Discussion
The present study represents the first comprehensive assessment of
the diversity and distribution of freshwater mussels of Peninsular
Malaysia and may serve as a reference for developing conservation
strategies for this important fauna. We found one non-native and nine
native species, many of which exhibit very restricted distributions.
Two of these species had not been recorded from Peninsular Malaysia
before. On the other hand, three species reported in the historical records
were not found in the current assessment. Consequently, our data indicate that the distributions of several freshwater mussel species
within Peninsular Malaysia have changed considerably over recent decades,
and suggest that historical data on freshwater mussel diversity
and distribution in Peninsular Malaysia suffer from widespread morphological
misidentifications.