An Investigation and Invasiveness Analysis of Two Species of Giant African Snail in a Coastal City of Southern China

Yongzhe Zhang, Xinfeng Wang, Yuzhe Tang, Linjing Wang, Rui Han, Xi Qiao, Fanghao Wan, Wanqiang Qian and Conghui Liu ()
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Yongzhe Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
Xinfeng Wang: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Yuzhe Tang: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Linjing Wang: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Rui Han: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Xi Qiao: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Fanghao Wan: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Wanqiang Qian: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China
Conghui Liu: Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518124, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: Investigations and research on the giant African snail (GAS) mainly focus on Achatina fulica . However, in recent years, a more harmful GAS, Achatina immaculata , has been reported. In order to understand the invasive status of A. immaculata in China, we take Shenzhen, a coastal city in Southern China, as an example to carry out an ecological survey on the field populations of the two species of GAS in various districts. We explore the differences in the invasive characteristics of the two species of snails in terms of their dietary intake, cold adaptation and drought resistance. The results indicate that, based on the phylogenetic tree analysis, more than half of the sampled snails exhibit higher similarity to A. immaculata . The number of wild A. immaculata is significantly greater than that of A. fulica , and 70.64% of the 746 GAS are A. immaculata . At the same time, it is also found that the maximum shell length of A. immaculata is 135.83 mm, with an average shell length of 76.00 mm, which is significantly different from the average shell length of A. fulica (56.57 mm, p < 0.01). The food intake assay shows that there is no difference in the food preferences of the two species, but the food demand of A. immaculata is significantly greater than that of A. fulica (2.32 fold, p < 0.01). In the cold adaptation assay, A. immaculata recovers from the cold dormancy state significantly faster than A. fulica (1.92 fold, p < 0.05), and the speed with which A. immaculata enters the dormancy state in the drought environment is significantly slower than that of A. fulica (0.706 fold, p < 0.05). With the characteristics of a large body size, large food intake and strong resistance to cold and drought resistance, A. immaculata has the potential to be dominant in competition with A. fulica in the same ecological niche, and it has become the main invasive species of GAS in Shenzhen.

Keywords: Achatina immaculata; Achatina fulica; giant African snail; invasiveness; East Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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