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Morphological and ecological shifts in a land snail caused by the impact of an introduced predator

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Restoring the Oceanic Island Ecosystem

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Abstract

Introduced predators have become major threats to native animal species in oceanic islands. A number of studies have shown that alien predators have caused serious extinctions of island endemics. However, little attention has been paid to the evolutionary impacts of alien predators on native species. The present study shows that predation by black rats, Rattus rattushas resulted in ecological and morphological changes in the land snail Mandarina anijimanafrom the island of Anijima in the Ogasawara archipelago. The frequency of empty predated shells has increased over the past 17–19 years in southern areas of the island. The shells of these snails were found to be significantly higher, smaller and darker in the survey in 2006 than in the survey in 1987–1989 performed in central and southern parts of Anijima, where predation by Rattuswas serious. M. anijimanawere formerly restricted to shallow broad-leaved litter, whereas they are currently found in deep palm litter, where predation pressure from Rattusmay be lower. This suggests that increased predation pressure by Rattushas changed the habitat use of M. anijimana.The close association between shell morphology and habitat use of Mandarinaspecies suggests that the habitat shift induced by the predation of Rattushas caused these changes in the shell morphology of M. anijimanaover a period of 17–19 years.

Reprinted from Chiba S (2007) Ecological Research 22:884–891, with permission of the Ecological Society of Japan.

Received: 3 June 2006/ Accepted: 5 December 2006 / Published online: 30 January 2007 © The Ecological Society of Japan 2007

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Acknowledgments

I express my sincere thanks to K. Tomiyama and I. Okochi for providing sample materials and to A. Davison and H. Kato for valuable advice on this study, as well as to R. H. Cowie for helpful comments about this manuscript. This study was conducted under permits from the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the South Kanto Branch of the Ministry of the Environment, and was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Global Environment Research Fund (F-051).

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  1. Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Aobayama, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Satoshi Chiba

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Correspondence to Satoshi Chiba .

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  1. Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687, Japan

    Kazuto Kawakami (Senior Researcher) & Isamu Okochi (Vice President) (Senior Researcher) &  (Vice President)

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Chiba, S. (2010). Morphological and ecological shifts in a land snail caused by the impact of an introduced predator. In: Kawakami, K., Okochi, I. (eds) Restoring the Oceanic Island Ecosystem. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-53859-2_9

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