Abstract
The presence of alien mollusc species in an ecosystem has a negative impact on the endemic mollusc fauna and can result in economic losses. The West African land snail Tomostele musaecola (Morelet) was previously recorded from numerous localities in the Western Hemisphere. In this paper, we provide a new locality of this malacophagous snail in the Dominican Republic. The species is recorded from an urban park named Parque Ecológico Las Caobas in the province of San Cristóbal. In order to update the current distribution of T. musaecola in the Americas we examined the literature and the online database of the Invertebrate Zoology Collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH); when available, citizen science data were also used. A map is provided to illustrate the current distribution of the species in the Americas. The total number of records in the Western Hemisphere is 51, and 26 of them are part of this review. More studies are needed on the interaction of this species with the native land snails. Trade and planting of ornamental species in urban parks facilitate the establishment and expansion of alien molluscs.
Highlights
Many species have been established in and introduced into new habitats due to inadvertent actions or deliberate human activities that frequently lead to ecological and economic damage (Vitousek et al 1997)
Carnivorous species of the family Streptaxidae have been introduced throughout the tropics and subtropics
We present data on a new record of T. musae cola in the Dominican Republic and update the information on the distribution presented by Hausdorf & Medina Bermúdez (2003), Robinson et al (2009) and Gerber & Clark (2015) for the Western Hemisphere, extending the distribution range
Summary
Many species have been established in and introduced into new habitats due to inadvertent actions or deliberate human activities that frequently lead to ecological and economic damage (Vitousek et al 1997). Carnivorous species of the family Streptaxidae have been introduced throughout the tropics and subtropics This has several implications for some native mollusc faunas (van Bruggen 1975, Stanisic 1981, Naggs 1989). Gulella bicolor (Hutton, 1834) and Tomostele musae cola (Morelet, 1860) are distinctive introduced streptaxids, known as “hunter snails”. They have been introduced circumtropically into the Caribbean Basin, south-eastern United States of America, northern part of South America, São Tomé and Príncipe, Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia
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