Abstract
Pomacea canaliculata (known as invasive apple snail) is a freshwater snail native to South America that was introduced into many countries (including Asia and North America) as a food source or for organic farming systems. However, it has invaded freshwater ecosystems and become a serious agricultural pest in paddy fields. Water temperature is an important factor determining behavior and successful establishment in new areas. We examined the behavioral responses of P. canaliculata with water temperature changes from 25 °C to 30 °C, 20 °C, and 15 °C by quantifying changes in nine behaviors. At the acclimated temperature (25 °C), the mobility of P. canaliculata was low during the day, but high at night. Clinging behavior increased as the water temperature decreased from 25 °C to 20 °C or 15 °C. Conversely, ventilation and food consumption increased when the water temperature increased from 25 °C to 30 °C. A self-organizing map (an unsupervised artificial neural network) was used to classify the behavioral patterns into seven clusters at different water temperatures. These results suggest that the activity levels or certain behaviors of P. canaliculata vary with the water temperature conditions. Understanding the thermal biology of P. canaliculata may be crucial for managing this invasive snail.
Highlights
The apple snail, Poamacea canaliculata (Gastropoda: Ampullariidae), is native to the southern parts of South America [1,2,3]
We examined the behavioral responses of apple snails to changes in water temperature
Distinct behaviors were observed during the transitions in water temperature and these behaviors were clearly classified according to the temperature change treatment based on the self-organizing map (SOM) analysis
Summary
The apple snail, Poamacea canaliculata (Gastropoda: Ampullariidae), is native to the southern parts of South America [1,2,3]. The Pomacea species has superior biological and ecological traits which make it a successful invader, such as high growth and reproductive rates, polyphagous feeding habits, mass propagation (e.g., egg spawning), high emergence rate (95.8%) and amphibious respiration and aestivating capacity, which make it highly adaptable and resistant to diverse environmental conditions when compared with native apple snails (e.g., Cipangopaludina chinensis malleata) [10,11,12,13,14] in freshwater ecosystems Their traits such as growth rate (e.g., [15]), reproductive maturity (e.g., [16]), spawning (e.g., [17]), and behavior (e.g., [18,19]) are strongly influenced by water temperature [18,19]. According to Lei et al [24], their suitable habitat may potentially increase by 3.8% in the 2080s based on the Representative
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