Land snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of India: status, threats and conservation strategies

Sandeep Sen,N.A Aravind,G Ravikanth

doi:10.11609/jott.o2722.3029-37

Abstract

Land snails form an important component in the forest ecosystem. In terms of number of species, the phylum Mollusca, to which land snails belong, is the largest phylum after Arthropoda. Mollusca provide unique ecosystem services including recycling of nutrients and they provide a prey base for small mammals, birds, snakes and other reptiles. However, land snails have the largest number of documented extinctions, compared to any other taxa. Till date 1,129 species of land snails are recorded from Indian territory. But only basic information is known about their taxonomy and little is known of their population biology, ecology and their conservation status. In this paper, we briefly review status, threats and conservation strategies of land snails of India.

Highlights

The tropics have faced massive biodiversity loss due to intensive anthropogenic activities such as changes in land use and degradation of environment
A large part of molluscan fauna in many tropical regions of the world is still poorly known. They form an important component of the forest ecosystem by recycling nutrients (Graveland et al 1994; Dunk et al 2004) and are the prey base for a number of small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other invertebrates, including carnivorous snails (Deepak et al 2010)
We review current status of ecology, conservation and threats to land snails with particular reference to India and discuss the strategies required for conserving this important group

Summary

Introduction

The tropics have faced massive biodiversity loss due to intensive anthropogenic activities such as changes in land use and degradation of environment. Beddome, led Indian land snail research until the early 20th century, but Gude and Pfeiffer’s research was based entirely on museum material as neither visited India These malacological pioneers laid the foundation of our knowledge on the taxonomy and distribution of Indian land snails. More recent studies in India, have mainly concentrated on inventorying regional snail faunas (like state or protected areas) and less on species description, ecology and conservation (Aravind et al 2010). Recent analysis of Indian land and freshwater molluscan literature has confirmed that that there are hardly any studies on the ecology and conservation of Indian land snails compared to the wide range of historical literature available on taxonomy (Aravind et al 2010).

Percent species

The major threats to the native land snail fauna

Conservation of Land snails in India

Findings

Conclusion