At the C entral E uropean– B alkan transition: forest land snail faunas of the B anat contrasted with those of the C arpathian chain

Twenty‐nine forest sites in six sampling areas in the B anat region of R omania, adjacent to S erbia, were sampled to obtain inventories of their snail faunas and to make comparisons between these and previously studied faunas in the mountains from the S udetes in the north‐west to the S outhern T ransylvanian C arpathians in the south. 65 species were recorded overall, with between 13 and 33 at individual sites. Among the six sampling areas that on S chist rock at high altitude differed markedly from the others, and contained mainly species also found in C arpathian forests further north. The remainder, mainly on limestone, also differed among themselves, but contained more species endemic to the region or regions to the south, together with those found mainly in open rocky habitats further north. Some species and subspecies were restricted to particular areas within the region, and although ecological factors accounted for some of these differences, they did not explain all of them. The faunas were differentiated from those in the C arpathians further north, and showed a greater affinity to those from countries to the south. These patterns indicate a transition between northern regions with locally rich but regionally poor forest faunas and those of the B alkans and M editerranean with many restricted endemics that survived the climatic fluctuations of the P leistocene in situ . Such faunas are no richer at site level than those from further north, but differ more among themselves even when environmental conditions are similar. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2015, ●● , ●●–●●.