0000000000740053
AUTHOR
Voichița Gheoca
A century after introduction: variability in Cepaea hortensis (Müller, 1774) in Sibiu, central Romania
AbstractThe polymorphic land snail Cepaea hortensis was introduced to the city of Sibiu, central Romania, in the first decade of the 20th century and has spread widely across the city. A total of 97 locations were examined in 2017 across the city to determine the habitat preferences and variation in shell size, shape, colour and banding polymorphism of C. hortensis, and to relate these to the same features in the likely source population from Mannheim, Germany, and the first established population in Sibiu. We found that C. hortensis was largely restricted to sites with some woody vegetation cover and showed a marked preference for abandoned and overgrown private gardens. Mean adult shell s…
Exploring land snails’ response to habitat characteristics and their potential as bioindicators of riparian forest quality
Abstract Riparian ecosystems are crucial for landscape-level biodiversity, especially in highly anthropic and agricultural areas. Although the low mobility of snails reduces their dispersal capacity and makes them vulnerable to habitat degradation, they are less commonly used as indicators. We evaluated the potential of land snails as bioindicators of riparian forest quality in central European riparian forests by surveying snail communities in relation to habitat characteristics that characterize its quality. Habitat characteristics were found to affect both snail abundance and species richness. The abundance of snail species increased with the forest continuity, forest width and abundance…
A comparative genetic study on exploited vs. Unperturbed wild populations of Helix Pomatia (L., 1758): preliminary results
Helix pomatia is one of the most well known species of land snails across Europe and it presents economical importance due to its consumption as food. The preliminary results of the genetic comparison between two populations, one of them under the pressure of exploitation, are presented here. As expected, most indices revealed a disequilibrium in the exploited population, with the exeption of the allelic pattern which was similar among the two studied populations.