Tolerance of embryos and hatchlings of the invasive apple snail Pomacea maculata to estuarine conditions

Abstract

One of the most successful groups of invasive consumers worldwide is freshwater snails of the family Ampullariidae, including Pomacea maculata, yet little is known about snail survival and growth in the range of conditions found in estuarine ecosystems. Here, we provide an experimental assessment of P. maculata survivability in estuarine conditions, documenting: (1) egg susceptibility to tidal inundation (2) salinity tolerance of snails, and (3) salinity effects on hatchling growth. Results indicate that estuarine conditions will not limit apple snail colonization in oligohaline and mesohaline reaches of estuaries, with eggs remaining viable when exposed to periodic inundations typical of a tidal regime and modest, albeit reduced, growth and survival at moderate salinities (5 and 10 ppt). For this reason, rapid detection and eradication of P. maculata in estuarine areas is needed to avoid the invasion of snails in these vital, productive environments.

Environmental Correlates to Genetic Diversity and Structure in Invasive Apple Snail (Pomacea canaliculata) Populations in China

“…Abiotic conditions that are beyond tolerances of an organism may caus immediate death or inhibit its ability to establish new populations and become invasive [21]. Some studies showed that the growth and reproduction of P. canaliculata are driven by water temperature [30,31], pH [9,20], dissolved oxygen [27], and salinity [28,29]. Our results indicated that genetic variation of P. canaliculata was significantly correlated with the concentration of dissolved oxygen and pH (p < 0.05).…”

“…Abiotic conditions of a system may prevent establishment or allow it to thrive, reproduce, and become invasive. For freshwater snails, key abiotic water quality variables are likely to be the concentration of calcium carbonate [25,26], pH [9,20], concentration of dissolved oxygen [27], salinity [28,29], and temperature [30,31]. Previous studies on the invasion of P. canaliculata mainly focused on distribution [19], associated diseases [32,33], phylogeny [15,19,22], and taxonomy [34].…”

Phylogeographic patterns and demographic history of Pomacea canaliculata and Pomacea maculata from different countries (Ampullariidae, Gastropoda, Mollusca)

“…1) possible genetic exchange, genetic bottlenecks and genetic drift (Matsukura et al 2013;Shirk et al 2014), which could be the result of the initial founder event that led to speciation in P. canaliculata and P. maculata (Freeland et al 2011); 2) the introduction of alien species to a non-native location may not be directly from the native range, but from a successful invasive population elsewhere, which could be the result of the bridge-head effect (Eric et al 2010); 3) sample numbers of Pomacea for each country were significantly different for this study, so further genetic analysis is needed to clarify this (Hayes et al 2008); 4) growth and reproduction of P. canaliculata and P. maculata are closely related to water temperature: many studies showed that the snail was not adapted to low temperatures (Andree and López 2013;Byers et al 2013;Hayes et al 2015;Bernatis et al 2016). In addition, climate change (Byers et al 2013) and environment factors such as pH (Byers et al 2013), calcium carbonate (White et al 2007;Perlman 2016), dissolved oxygen (Seuffert and Martín 2009), salinity (Verbrugge et al 2012;Martin and Valentine 2014) may affect their life history. Pomacea was introduced to many countries as food, but its economic potential was overestimated.…”

The ecophysiology of apple snails in rice: implications for crop management and policy

“…Few studies have examined the effects of salinity on apple snails; however, adult P. canaliculata and P. maculata are capable of tolerating salinities ranging from 3‰–8‰ (Ramakrishnan, ; Bernatis et al ., ). Apple snails will not survive in estuarine and salt‐water conditions, although the eggs of P. maculata can survive short term exposure to salinities above 10‰ (Martin & Valentine, ). Hatchlings, and to a lesser extent juveniles, of both species are less tolerant of saline conditions than eggs and adults and suffer high mortality at salinities above 8‰.…”