Land snail populations in abandoned water cisterns in Israel: A model system of artificial niche colonization

Oren Kolodny*, Israel Naaman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Many untended water cisterns which had been in use until 68 years ago may be found throughout Israel. These cisterns constitute a unique ecological niche for a variety of organisms, providing a prime opportunity to explore the colonization of an artificial, little-studied ecological niche, over long periods of time. We actualized this approach by conducting a land snail survey in ten sites, and found colonization of cisterns by troglophilic species in six of them. We report for the first time the finding of live specimens of Calaxis hierosolymarum (Roth, 1855) in Israel, demonstrating the rare access to underground cavities provided by this study system.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)233-237
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Conchology
Volume42
Issue number4
StatePublished - Aug 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Artificial niches
  • Colonization
  • Land snails
  • Troglophilic land snails
  • Water cisterns

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