English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Shell formation is the main defensive strategy against predation for the majority of snails. Therefore, various predators have had to develop a variety of techniques how to overcome this barrier. As shells can persist in a calcium-rich environment for a long time, specific external or internal traces on shells left by predators indicate whether and who killed the snail. Based on litter samples collected at 30 sites of five different habitat types, the intensity and type of predation were assessed. The minimal predation rate varied between 0.0 and 21%, with an average of 8%. The highest rate was observed at limestone steppes, on average 15%. Beetles were found to be the most common predators of snails; however, predation by snails was more common in calcareous fens. Predation by some vertebrates and dipteran flies was also recognised. To test the role of mouth barriers as a means to reduce predation by carabid beetles that break the shell from an aperture, we analysed the predation rate separately on adult and juvenile shells using 24 populations of the steppe snail  Granaria frumentum  (Draparnaud, 1801). As expected, carabid beetles chiefly preferred juveniles compared to adult shells (Wilcoxon test, p &lt; 0.001). On the contrary, the parasitoid fly  Pherbellia limbata  (Meigen, 1830) and  Drilus  beetles preferred adults. We found that predation by carabid beetles positively increased with prey abundance (R 2  = 42.8%, p = 0.021), while no relation was observed for the parasitoid (p = 0.703), likely due to their feeding specialisation.

Specific damage recognised on land snail shells as a tool for studying predation intensity: differences related to habitat and predator types