New York State Land Snails
Some of the most commonly encountered molluscs in New York State are non-indigenous. For example, the slugs you find in your garden have generally been introduced from Europe. Still others are still coming to us through the garden trade, and aquatic snails (and their eggs) can be brought to New York on plant material attached to boat propellers, through the aquarium trade, and a variety of other mechanisms.
Less well known and understood are the land snails that are indigenous to New York. ESF Research Associate Colin Beier has begun to incorporate land snails into our understanding of faunal response to acid rain and climate change. Colleagues Ken Hotopp and Tim Pearce (Carnegie Museum of Natural History) have examined museum collections to determine what snails were historically present in the state and where they should be found. However, many parts of New York State still remain poorly known—particularly rural mountain regions. And the evolutionary history of New York State land snails is also not well known. Are indigenous land snails in New York State declining (as we think they are elsewhere in North America)? We are working to fill these enormous gaps in our knowledge and better understand how land snails might be used as ecological indicators in forests generally, and whether these approaches can be used in other forests (e.g. in the tropics).
One land snail that is of particular interest is the Chittenango ovate amber snail Novisuccinea chittenangoensis, which is a federally listed endangered species known from only a single waterfall in central New York. These snails are in the same family as a group of snails I studied in the Hawaiian Islands, the Succineidae. We are working to understand how we might we best conserve the Chittenango ovate amber snail and its unique habitat. Indeed, spring snails and snails living riparian areas are under severe threat around the U.S. (Lydeard et al., 2004), and therefore the conservation of our local snail could be used as a model for snails in a similarly precarious position.
Less well known and understood are the land snails that are indigenous to New York. ESF Research Associate Colin Beier has begun to incorporate land snails into our understanding of faunal response to acid rain and climate change. Colleagues Ken Hotopp and Tim Pearce (Carnegie Museum of Natural History) have examined museum collections to determine what snails were historically present in the state and where they should be found. However, many parts of New York State still remain poorly known—particularly rural mountain regions. And the evolutionary history of New York State land snails is also not well known. Are indigenous land snails in New York State declining (as we think they are elsewhere in North America)? We are working to fill these enormous gaps in our knowledge and better understand how land snails might be used as ecological indicators in forests generally, and whether these approaches can be used in other forests (e.g. in the tropics).
One land snail that is of particular interest is the Chittenango ovate amber snail Novisuccinea chittenangoensis, which is a federally listed endangered species known from only a single waterfall in central New York. These snails are in the same family as a group of snails I studied in the Hawaiian Islands, the Succineidae. We are working to understand how we might we best conserve the Chittenango ovate amber snail and its unique habitat. Indeed, spring snails and snails living riparian areas are under severe threat around the U.S. (Lydeard et al., 2004), and therefore the conservation of our local snail could be used as a model for snails in a similarly precarious position.
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Photos from the northern Adirondacks: J. Rundell. Succineid photo (top): R. Rundell
