Comparing Biodiversity of Land Snails and Slugs Across Cities in Georgia

Land snails and slugs provide key ecological insights on the habitats in which they live through vital roles they serve in the ecosystem. Apart from being a major prey item and consumers of plant litter and fungi, or instead living as carnivores, the diversity of land snails and slugs is important to seed dispersal and in contributing to calcium cycling. When species enter non-native environments unchecked, they disturb a fragile balance which could be detrimental to native snails and slugs. Although understudied in the past, the documentation of land snails and slugs in Georgia has recently undergone significant re-evaluation. Felix et al. (2019) compiled a list of land snails in the state according to museum collections and predictive modeling. They concluded that Georgia was home to 214 species of land snails and likely to have 68 more species waiting to be discovered in part due to expected geographic ranges, although at least 10 of the predicted species were noted as being exotic and potentially invasive.

Recent work at Georgia State University has expanded upon these findings by using a citizen science-based application called iNaturalist. People can upload geotagged images of biota that they find to iNaturalist, and the app suggests an identification using photo recognition and location context. Individuals from around the world then comment on the images posted to verify the species. Through study of iNaturalist data on land snails and slugs in the Atlanta area and adding new observations to the app, researchers at GSU have confirmed the presence of at least two new non-native genera in Atlanta, Arion and Ambigolimax, that were not included in the 2019 paper.

The goal of this research is to expand the sphere of observations to the other major urban centers in Georgia, consisting of Augusta, Athens, Macon, Columbus, and Savannah. Data from iNaturalist can be analyzed using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to determine spatial patterns and species distribution. Comparing assemblages across cities will provide insights not just into overall biodiversity, but also into the impact that new exotic species may have on native communities and habitat degradation.