The last remaining stands of primary Tamaulipan thorn forest in the United States are in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, a rapidly urbanizing region, where 95% of native plant communities having been converted into agricultural or urban land since the 1930’s. Over one million ha of native forests and subtropical brushlands remain, including only 23,000 ha Tamaulipan thorn forest on protected lands. Since 1982, 24% of this 23,000 ha have been reclaimed from previous agricultural lands. We compared the land snail communities in the last remaining stands of primary Tamaulipan thorn forest with matched (by vegetative type) successional stands to understand the influence of human disturbance and restoration on invertebrate species with poor dispersal abilities. We collected snails by hand and in leaf litter samples at 16 primary and 21 successional sites to quantify macro- and microsnail relative abundances.
Results/Conclusions
We collected and identified 19,405 snail individuals in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Primary sites contained between 1 and 17 snail species while successional sites contained between 2 and 15. Our preliminary analysis found no difference in species richness and evenness between the primary and successional sites. This research has significance in habitat conservation and important implications for conserving pristine forests that are left in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.