Geographical and environmental patterns of Carpathian land snail faunas in a region of high endemicity.

ABSTRACT: The land snail faunas of limestone gorges of Romanian Carpathians were sampled to test the effect of geographic and environmental factors on the malacofauna richness and composition. A total of 134 sites within 28 limestone gorges were surveyed during 2011-2019 using a combined strategy of visual search and litter/topsoil analysis. Environmental variables such as geographic location, altitude, climate, microhabitat type, dominant vegetation, tree cover and width of the gorge were recorded to detect the relationship with species richness and composition. While the numbers of species, their identities and their abundance varied greatly among samples, both presence and absence data and quantitative multivariate analyses showed that region and climate or altitude (both strongly associated with

SUBMITTER: Gheoca V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10791649 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature