[NatureList] ah, delicious Buckthorn! ...and a dietary preference experiment.
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Frederick W. Schueler
Jul 10, 2024, 6:39:53 PMJul 10
to Eastern Ontario Natural History listserve, Kara Layton, Brenda Kostiuk
Everyone,
You may remember that over the past couple of years I've been astonished
by the way the introduced Cepaea have fed on the leaves of invasive
Cathartic Buckthorn, both as we've been clearing it, and by going 6
metres up in the trees to shred the leaves. This spring we had immense
numbers of juveniles around an area I'd been clearing last summer & fall.
On 21 June, I cut a new pile of Buckthorn tops, about a cubic metre in
size, and as the leaves dried out snails crawled up into the pile, and
this afternoon, after 46 mm of rain, there was a very loosely estimated
>200 mostly mature snails up in the pile, and an additional huge number
on the ground under the pile. I've also been thinning the crown of one
of our pollarded Manitoba Maples, and had a big pile of dried out tops
between the houses, but no snails crawled up into them - though there's
a much less dense snail population around the houses. I took a couple of
armloads across the street and put them beside the Buckthorn pile, so
we'll see if the snails prefer or reject the Manitoba Maple. Last year I
did a less-controlled experiment with some Lilac tops, and found the
snails didn't swarm them as enthusiastically as they would have Buckthorn.
Another thing about the hundreds of snails in the pile is the question
of from how far the snails were attracted to the pile. The presence of
the pile seems to have persuaded the snails not to go up the saplings
where I've been counting & measuring how high they go. The distance of
movement could be studied by marking snails in concentric distances from
the site of a pile, putting the pile in place, and seeing how far the
snails come, and then marking the ones on the pile, and seeing how far
they redisperse after the leaves are gone.
fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
---------Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad ------------
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
FI Newsletter -
https://clt1233162.benchmarkurl.com/c/v?e=15E5037&c=12D10A&t=0&l=53EF5F06
2022 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/EFE49F7
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
------------------------------------------------------------
You may remember that over the past couple of years I've been astonished
by the way the introduced Cepaea have fed on the leaves of invasive
Cathartic Buckthorn, both as we've been clearing it, and by going 6
metres up in the trees to shred the leaves. This spring we had immense
numbers of juveniles around an area I'd been clearing last summer & fall.
On 21 June, I cut a new pile of Buckthorn tops, about a cubic metre in
size, and as the leaves dried out snails crawled up into the pile, and
this afternoon, after 46 mm of rain, there was a very loosely estimated
>200 mostly mature snails up in the pile, and an additional huge number
on the ground under the pile. I've also been thinning the crown of one
of our pollarded Manitoba Maples, and had a big pile of dried out tops
between the houses, but no snails crawled up into them - though there's
a much less dense snail population around the houses. I took a couple of
armloads across the street and put them beside the Buckthorn pile, so
we'll see if the snails prefer or reject the Manitoba Maple. Last year I
did a less-controlled experiment with some Lilac tops, and found the
snails didn't swarm them as enthusiastically as they would have Buckthorn.
Another thing about the hundreds of snails in the pile is the question
of from how far the snails were attracted to the pile. The presence of
the pile seems to have persuaded the snails not to go up the saplings
where I've been counting & measuring how high they go. The distance of
movement could be studied by marking snails in concentric distances from
the site of a pile, putting the pile in place, and seeing how far the
snails come, and then marking the ones on the pile, and seeing how far
they redisperse after the leaves are gone.
fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
---------Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad ------------
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
FI Newsletter -
https://clt1233162.benchmarkurl.com/c/v?e=15E5037&c=12D10A&t=0&l=53EF5F06
2022 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/EFE49F7
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
------------------------------------------------------------
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