Variation in the population density of the Giant African Snail (&lt;i&gt;Lissachatina fulica&lt;/i&gt;) in the Neotropical region

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Abstract

The Giant African Snail (Lissachatina fulica) is one of the 100 world’s worst invasive species and has been recorded in the Neotropical region since the 1980s. Temperature and precipitation variables affect snail population density; however, these relationships have not been investigated for L. fulica on a regional scale. Here, we made the first description of variation in population density of L. fulica in the Neotropical region using a literature search, descriptive statistics, and a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). We found 22 studies covering 36 localities in six countries. The mean snail density was 11.55 ± 28.32 ind/m2, with the lowest value recorded in Cuba (0.0002 ind/m2) and the highest value recorded in Venezuela (150 ind/m2). These values were recorded between 21 % to 93 % of Human Footprint, 710 mm to 4438 mm of Annual Precipitation, 13 ºC to 27 ºC, Mean Temperature of the Coldest Quarter, and 3 ºC to 40 ºC of Temperature Seasonality. The PCA suggested that low densities can occur in various environmental conditions, whereas medium and high densities seem to appear in more specific climatic combinations. In conclusion, increased densities of Lissachatina fulica in the Neotropics seem to be influenced by climatic variations, especially the Mean Temperature of the Coldest Quarter and Annual Precipitation, supporting previous findings in the literature regarding the snail establishment. Future monitoring of this invasive species, performed at expanded spatial and temporal scales, may provide tools to establish a relationship between snail density values and impact.

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FactoMineR: AnRPackage for Multivariate Analysis

Sébastien Le Jan, Julie Josse, François Husson (2008)

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Disentangling the abundance–impact relationship for invasive species

Bethany Bradley, Brittany Laginhas, Raj Whitlock … (2019)

To predict the threat of biological invasions to native species, it is critical that we understand how increasing abundance of invasive alien species (IAS) affects native populations and communities. The form of this relationship across taxa and ecosystems is unknown, but is expected to depend strongly on the trophic position of the IAS relative to the native species. Using a global metaanalysis based on 1,258 empirical studies presented in 201 scientific publications, we assessed the shape, direction, and strength of native responses to increasing invader abundance. We also tested how native responses varied with relative trophic position and for responses at the population vs. community levels. As IAS abundance increased, native populations declined nonlinearly by 20%, on average, and community metrics declined linearly by 25%. When at higher trophic levels, invaders tended to cause a strong, nonlinear decline in native populations and communities, with the greatest impacts occurring at low invader abundance. In contrast, invaders at the same trophic level tended to cause a linear decline in native populations and communities, while invaders at lower trophic levels had no consistent impacts. At the community level, increasing invader abundance had significantly larger effects on species evenness and diversity than on species richness. Our results show that native responses to invasion depend critically on invasive species’ abundance and trophic position. Further, these general abundance–impact relationships reveal how IAS impacts are likely to develop during the invasion process and when to best manage them.