Diversity and abundance of land snails in various agricultural crops and their boundary ridges of different width.

This master thesis investigates the diversity and abundance of land snails in different agricultural crop types (conventionally managed vine, cereals and fruits). In these crops, I sampled field margins of > 4 m and ca 1 m width sampled in 3 m and 0.5 m distance to the field, respectively, to characterize the effects the different pesticide drift at these distances on snails. I also took samples 20 m in the field to monitor the combined effects of specific soil tillage and pesticide applications on the snail fauna in the diverse crops, and sampled different reference meadows. The 6 studied areas all lay in a ca. 15 km radius around Landau (Pfalz) and included agricultural landscapes of different land use intensity which gives the study a regional significance.

Until now, I took 360 standardized samples (72 x 5 replicates) of soil / vegetation (19 x 19 cm, 8 cm deep), resulting in a total amount of ca. 1 t of soil, during a time-span of 2.5 d. All samples were deep-frozen at -20°C. The penetration resistance for each sample up to a depth of 15 cm (1 cm steps) and the relative humidity were measured in situ.
Soil samples will be wet-sieved and searched for snails. As accompanying parameters, Ca-content (especially important for the shell formation of snails) and pH as a proxy for Ca-supply will be determined for the pooled replicate samples in the laboratory.

Related publications

Swarowsky, K., Brühl, C.A. (2011): Diversity and abundance of land snails in various agricultural crops and their boundary ridges of different width. Poster Presentation, 2nd SETAC Young Environmental Scientists Meeting 2011, Aachen, Germany (more Info)

Swarowsky, K., Brühl, C.A., Stahlschmidt, P.(2010): Landschnecken in landwirtschaftlichen Kulturen und deren Feldsäumen. Poster Presentation, 5th joint Annual Meeting of the SETAC GLB and GDCh (Section Environmental chemistry and Ecotoxicology) 2011, Landau, Germany (more info)