RESEARCH PAPER
Records of the slugs Ariolimax columbianus (Ariolimacidae) and Prophysaon foliolatum (Arionidae) imported into Sweden
 
More details
Hide details
1
Museum of Natural History Göteborg, Sweden
 
2
Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Germany
 
3
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium
 
 
Submission date: 2017-09-20
 
 
Final revision date: 2017-11-02
 
 
Acceptance date: 2017-11-05
 
 
Publication date: 2017-12-01
 
 
Corresponding author
Heike Reise   

Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Görlitz, Am Museum 1, 02826 Görlitz, Germany
 
 
Folia Malacol. 2017;25(4):267-271
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Two North American slug species are reported from three locations in southern Sweden: three records (in 2005, 2014 and 2015) of Ariolimax columbianus (Gould) and one 2005 record of Prophysaon foliolatum (Gould). The record of P. foliolatum is the first for Europe. In all cases it is highly probable or proven that the slugs had been accidentally imported with ornamental plants from North America, particularly salal, Gaultheria shallon Pursh. Salal is collected on a massive scale from the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Canada and Washington State, and exported as green filler for floral arrangements. The harvest, storage and transport conditions seem perfectly suitable for these slugs, which are not synanthropic but live in natural habitats where salal thrives. We point out that these apparently uncontrolled imports might open the door to the introduction of new, non-synanthropic species.
REFERENCES (25)
1.
Ballard H., Collins D., Lopez A., Freed J. 2002. Harvesting floral greens in Western Washington as value-addition: labor issues and globalization. Conference paper: The Commons in an Age of Globalisation, 9th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, June 1721, 2002: 28.
 
2.
Baron D. 2005. Bananenslak: Ariolimax columbianus (Gould, 1851) in Nederland. Spirula 342: 5.
 
3.
Burke T. E. 2013. Land snails and slugs of the Pacific Northwest. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis.
 
4.
Chichester L. F., Getz L. L. 1969. The zoogeography and ecology of arionid and limacid slugs introduced into northeastern North America. Malacologia 7: 313–346.
 
5.
Elejalde M. A., Breugelmans K., Vrijders H., Leonard J. L., Pearse J. S., Jordaens K., Backeljau T. 2011. Phylogenetic relationships of banana slugs (Stylommatophora: Arionidae: Ariolimax) using ­mtDNA. In: Sociedad Española de Malacología (Eds): Congress Abstracts. 6th Congress of the European Malacological Societies, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 18–22 July, 2011, Vitoria-Gasteiz: 14.
 
6.
Forsyth R. G. 2004. Land snails of British Columbia. Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria.
 
7.
Hobby T., Dew K., MacKenzie S. 2010. Commercial development of salal on southern Vancouver Island. BC J. Ecosyst. Manag. 11: 62–71.
 
8.
Leonard J. L., Pearse J. S., Harper A. B. 2002. Comparative reproductive biology of Ariolimax cali­fornicus and A. doli­chophallus (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora). Invertebr. Reprod. Dev. 41: 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/079242....
 
9.
Leray M., Yang J. Y., Meyer C. P., Mills S. C., Agudelo N., Ranwez V., Boehm J. T., Machida R. J. 2013. A new versatile primer set targeting a short fragment of the mitochondrial COI region for metabarcoding metazoan diversity: application for characterizing coral reef fish gut contents. Front. Zool. 10: 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-9....
 
10.
Mead A. R. 1943. Revision of the giant West Coast land slugs of the genus Ariolimax Moerch (Pulmonata: Arionidae). Am. Midl. Nat. 30: 675–717. https://doi.org/10.2307/242120....
 
11.
Pilsbry H. A. 1948. Land Mollusca of North America (North of Mexico). Vol. 2 (Part II): I–XLVII + 521–1113. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Philadelphia.
 
12.
Pojar J., MacKinnon A. 2004. Plants of the Pacific Northwest coast. Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver.
 
13.
Proschwitz T. von 2015. Faunistical news from the Göteborg Natural History Museum 2014 – snails, slugs and mussels. Göteb. Nat. Hist. Mus. Årstr. 2015: 31–46.
 
14.
Reise H., Hutchinson J. M. C. 2002. Penis-biting slugs: wild claims and confusions. Trends Ecol. Evol. 17: 163. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-....
 
15.
Reise H., Hutchinson J. M. C., Robinson D. G. 2006. Two introduced pest slugs: Tandonia budapestensis new to the Americas, and Deroceras panormitanum new to the Eastern USA. Veliger 48: 110–115.
 
16.
Reise H., Hutchinson J. M. C., Schunack S., Schlitt B. 2011. Deroceras panormitanum and congeners from Malta and Sicily, with a redescription of the widespread pest slug as Deroceras invadens n. sp. Folia Malacol. 19: 201–233. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10125....
 
17.
Richter K. O. 1979. Aspects of nutrient cycling by Ariolimax columbianus (Mollusca: Arionidae) in Pacific Northwest coniferous forests. Pedobiologia 18: 60–74.
 
18.
Robinson D. G. 1999. Alien invasions: the effect of the global economy on non-marine gastropod introductions into the United States. Malacologia 41: 413–438.
 
19.
Rollo C. G., Wellington W. G. 1975. Terrestrial slugs in the vicinity of Vancouver, British Columbia. Nautilus 89: 107–115.
 
20.
Simberloff D. 2009. The role of propagule pressure in biological invasions. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 40: 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1146/annure....
 
21.
Simberloff D. 2013. Invasive species: what everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press, New York.
 
22.
Soes D. M., Vierbergen G., van de Vossenberg B. T. L. H., Breugelmans K., Backeljau T. 2015. Een Bananenslak Ariolimax columbanus [sic!] (Gould, 1851) ingevoerd met Salal. Spirula 402: 42–44.
 
23.
Wiese V. 2009. Einschleppung einer Banana-slug Ariolimax columbianus nach Norddeutschland. Schr. Malakozool. Cismar 25: 12.
 
24.
Wilke T., Duncan N. 2004. Phylogeographical patterns in the American Pacific Northwest: lessons from the arionid slug Prophysaon coeruleum. Mol. Ecol. 13: 2303–2315. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365....
 
25.
Winnepennincks B., Backeljau T., De Wachter R. 1993. Extraction of high molecular weight DNA from molluscs. Trends Genet. 9: 407. https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-9....
 
 
CITATIONS (4):
1.
Undesirable immigrants: hobbyist vivaria as a potential source of alien invertebrate species
Radomir Jaskuła, Anna Sulikowska-Drozd, Aleksandra Jabłońska, Krzysztof Banaś, Tomasz Rewicz
PeerJ
 
2.
Genetic evidence illuminates the origin and global spread of the slug Deroceras invadens
John Hutchinson, Bettina Schlitt, Tereza Kořínková, Heike Reise, Gary Barker
Journal of Molluscan Studies
 
3.
Rapid invasion of the slug Krynickillus melanocephalus Kaleniczenko, 1851 in Sweden and some notes on the biology and anthropochorous spread of the species in Europe (Gastropoda: Eupulmonata: Agriolimacidae)
Proschwitz von
Folia Malacologica
 
4.
The faecal microbiome of the Pacific banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus, displays seasonal variation
Sarah M Boomer, Michael J Baltzley, Bryan E Dutton, Parker N Smith
Journal of Molluscan Studies
 
eISSN:2300-7125
ISSN:1506-7629
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top