Abstract
Focus has been placed on the relative importance of environmental heterogeneity and biological interactions on community structure. For land snails, abiotic factors have commonly been assumed to be the most important factors for shaping communities because resources for land snails are commonly not limiting, and because interspecific resource competition would not be strong enough to promote ecological divergence. However, clear divergence in habitat use is often observed among sympatric land snail species. Such an ecological divergence would be promoted not by resource competition but by other interactions such as aggression. To test this hypothesis, laboratory experiments were designed to explore aggressive behaviour in the land snails Euhadra quaesita and E. peliomphala and field surveys were conducted to examine their habitat use. In the laboratory experiments, we examined how the presence of one species affects the growth of the other species by supplying sufficient amounts of food and calcium for both species. Experimental trials showed that adult E. quaesita decreased the growth of E. peliomphala under constant diet conditions. In contrast, E. peliomphala did not affect the growth of E. quaesita. Because E. peliomphala was often attacked by E. quaesita and its shell was often eroded by E. quaesita gnawing, aggression by E. quaesita appears to be the primary factor reducing the growth of E. peliomphala. When the two species coexist in nature, adults and juveniles of E. quaesita are terrestrial, while those of E. peliomphala are arboreal. When these species occurred alone, E. quaesita were still terrestrial, but E. peliomphala were more terrestrial than when they were in sympatry. Our results suggest that habitat use of these species in the natural communities is affected by interspecific interference. These findings further suggest that the divergence of habitat use between the species can occur by aggression even in environments with unlimited resources.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akaike H (1974) A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Trans Automat Cotnr 19:716–723
Anderson NJ, Brodersen KP, Ryves DB, McGowan S, Johansson LS, Jeppesen E, Leng MJ (2008) Climate versus in-lake processes as controlls on the development of community structure in a low-arctic lake (South-West Greenland). Ecosystem 11:307–324
Baer SG, Blair JM, Collins SL, Knapp AK (2004) Plant community responces to resource availability and heterogeneity during restoration. Oecologia 139:617–629
Baur B (1988) Microgeographic variation in the shell size of the land snail Chondrina clienta. Biol J Linn Soc 35:247–259
Baur B, Baur A (1990) Experimental evidence for intra- and interspecific competition in two species of rock-dwelling land snails. J Anim Ecol 59:301–315
Begon M, Harper JL, Townsend CR (1996) Ecology–individuals, populations, communities, 3rd edn. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford
Boycott AE (1934) The habitats of land mollusca in Britain. J Ecol 22:1–38
Bull CM, Baker GH, Lawson LM, Steed MA (1992) Investigations of role of mucus and faeces in interspecific interactions of two land snails. J Moll Stud 58:433–441
Burch JB, Pearce TA (1990) Terrestrial gastropoda. In: Dindal DL (ed) Soil biology guide. Wiley, New York, pp 201–309
Burnham KP, Anderson DR (2002) Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Springer, New York
Butler AJ (1976) A shortage of food for the terrestrial snail Helicella virgata in South Australia. Oecologia 25:349–371
Cain AJ (1983) Ecology and ecogenetics of terrestrial molluscan populations. In: Russel-Hunter WD (ed) The mollusca 6: ecology. Academic Press, London, pp 597–647
Cameron RAD (1970) Differences in the distributions of three species of helicid snails in the limestone district of Derbyshire. Proc R Soc B 176:131–159
Cameron RAD, Carter MA (1979) Intra- and interspecific effects of population density on growth and activity in some helicid land snails (Gasropoda: Pulmonata). J Anim Ecol 48:237–246
Carter MA, Ashdown M (1984) Experimental studies on the effects of density, size and shell colour and banding phenotypes on the fecundity of Cepaea nemoralis. Malacologia 25:291–302
Carter MA, Jeffery RCV, Williamson P (1979) Food overlap in co-existing populations of the land snails Cepaea nemoralis (L.) and Cepaea hortensis (Mull). Biol J Linn Soc 11:169–176
Connell JH (1975) Some mechanisms producing structure in natural communities: a model and evidence from field experiments. In: Cody M, Diamond J (eds) Ecology and evolution of communities. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 460–490
Cook A (2001) Behavioural ecology: on doing the right thing, in the right place at the right time. In: Baker GM (ed) The biology of terrestrial molluscs. CABI publishing, Wallingford, pp 447–487
Dan NA, Bailey SER (1982) Growth, mortality and feeding rates of the snail Helix aspersa at different population densities in the laboratory and the depression of activity of Helicid snails by other individuals or their mucus. J Moll Stud 48:257–265
Foster BA, Stiven AE (1996) Experimental effects of density and food on growth and mortality of the southern Appalachian land gastropod, Mesodon normalis (Pilsbry). Am Midl Nat 136:300–314
Hatziioannou M, Eleutheriadis N, Lazaridou-Dimitriadou M (1994) Food preferences and dietary overlap by terrestrial snails in logos area (Edessa, Macedonia, Northern Greece). J Moll Stud 60:331–341
Hay ME, Parker JD, Burkepile DE, Caudill CC, Wilson AE, Hallinan ZP, Chequer AD (2004) Mutualism and aquatic community structure: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 35:175–197
Law R, Marrow P, Dieckman U (1997) On evolution under asymmetric competition. Evol Ecol 11:485–501
MacArthur RH, Levins R (1967) The limiting similarity, convergence and divergence of coexisting species. Am Nat 101:377–385
Maynard Smith J, Parker GA (1976) The logic of asymmetric contests. Anim Behav 24:159–175
Nagasawa T (1990) Eatable plants of Euhadra quaesita. Newsl Malacol Soc Jpn 21:17–20
Pearce TA (1997) Interference and resource competition in two land snails: adult inhibit conspecific juvenile growth in field and laboratory. J Moll Stud 63:389–399
R Development Core Team (2008) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org
Rollo CD (1983a) Consequences of competition on the reproduction and mortality of three species of terrestrial slugs. Res Popul Ecol 25:20–43
Rollo CD (1983b) Consequences of competition on the time budgets, growth and distributions of three species of terrestrial slugs. Res Popul Ecol 25:44–68
Rollo CD, Wellington WG (1979) Intra- and interspecific agonistic behaviour among terrestrial slugs (Pulmonata: Stylommatophora). Can J Zool 57:846–855
Roughgarden J (1979) Theory of population genetics and evolutionary ecology: an introduction. Macmillan, New York
Smallridge MA, Kirby GC (1988) Competitive interactions between the land snails Theba pisana (Muller) and Cernuella virgata (Da Costa) from South Australia. J Moll Stud 54:251–258
Strong DR, Simberloff D, Abele LG, Thistle AB (1984) Ecological communities: conceptual issues and the evidence. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Tattersfield P (1981) Density and environmental effects on shell size in some sand dune snail populations. Biol J Linn Soc 16:71–81
Valovirta I (1968) Land molluscs in relation to acidity on hyperite hills in Central Finland. Ann Zool Fennici 5:245–253
Walden HW (1981) Community and diversity of land mollucs in Scandinavian woodlands. I. High diversity communities in taluses and boulder slopes in SW Sweden. J Conch 30:351–372
Whitham TG, Bailey JK, Schweitzer JA, Schster SM, Bangert RK, LeRoy CJ, Lonsdorf EV, Allan GJ, DiFazio SP, Potts BM, Fischer DG, Gehring CA, Lindroth RL, Marks JC, Hart SC, Wimp GM, Wooley SC (2006) A framewok for community and ecosystem genetics: from genes to ecosystem. Nature Rev Genet 7:510–523
Williamson P, Cameron RAD, Carter MA (1976) Population density affecting adult shell size of snail Cepaea nemoralis L. Nature 263:496–497
Williamson P, Cameron RAD, Carter MA (1977) Population dynamics of the landsnail Cepaea nemoralis L.: a six-year study. J Anim Ecol 46:181–194
Wolda H, Zweep A, Schuitema KA (1971) The role of food in the dynamics of populations of the landsnail Cepaea nemoralis. Oecologia 7:361–381
Acknowledgments
We express our sincere gratitude to M. Hayashi, J. Konuma, and N. Takahashi for helpful advice and assistance in this study. This study was financially supported by The Global COE Program J03 (Ecosystem management adapting to global change) of the MEXT, Japan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kimura, K., Chiba, S. Interspecific interference competition alters habitat use patterns in two species of land snails. Evol Ecol 24, 815–825 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-009-9339-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-009-9339-8