2010/01/17 by Jeffrey C. Nekola · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Mollusks and Parasites Studies #Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
paper · doi:10.1093/mollus/eyp053
openalex publication_date 2010/01/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/21
Habitats with soil pH, 4 and Ca, 100 ppm, such as pocosins, Sphagnum bogs and heathlands, would appear inimical to land-snail biodiversity. Nevertheless, a survey of 1,356 sites, c. 1/2 million individuals and over 240 species (c. 1/5 of the continental fauna) across North America shows that c. 10 % of species appear to favour such highly or moderately acidic sites, spread from subtropical forests of the Gulf of Mexico coast to the arctic tundra. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling ordina-tion of faunas from 292 sites that support at least five co-occurring species documents that the princi-pal axis of compositional variation in highly and moderately acidic habitats is significantly (P, 0.0005) correlated with latitude, while the second axis is significantly (P, 0.0005) correlated with moisture level. Composition was found to vary continuously along both axes, implying that discrete acidophilic communities are not present. While highly and moderately acidic sites were shown to have significantly (P, 0.000000005) lower richness and abundance compared with neutral/calcar-eous habitats, even the most acidic sites still typically supported 5–10 species. Abundance distri-butions in highly acidic habitats were found to be more uneven those of neutral/calcareous sites. The greater richness of the North American acidophilic land snail fauna compared with that in Europe has allowed communities to display replacement-driven compositional turnover. These results demon-strate that it is vitally important for biodiversity surveys of North American land snails not to ignore acidic habitats, because they harbour an important and surprisingly diverse fauna.