Land snail communities of Cheile Vârghișului Nature Reserve (the Perșani Mountains, Romania)
Keywords:
biodiversity, community ecology, Gastropoda, limestone.Abstract
This paper analyses the land snail communities of Cheile Vârghișului Nature Reserve located at the limit between Covasna and Harghita Counties (the Perșani Mountains), one of the most spectacular karst area of the southern part of the eastern Carpathians. In total 43 species of terrestrial gastropods were identified during this study and from the literature. The most abundant species were Truncatellina cylindrica, Laciniaria plicata, Carychium tridentatum, Ruthenica filograna, Faustina faustina and Alopia bogatensis. The highest diversity was found in the forest habitat with limestone outcrops, while the limestone cliffs located in the forest sheltered large populations of typical limestone species, as well as typical forest species. The restrictive environmental conditions of the exposed limestone cliffs are favourable only for a limited number of species developing large populations.
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