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,
Conghui Liu
Affiliations
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
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 A. immaculata is significantly greater than that of A. fulica (2.32 fold, p A. immaculata recovers from the cold dormancy state significantly faster than A. fulica (1.92 fold, p A. immaculata enters the dormancy state in the drought environment is significantly slower than that of A. fulica (0.706 fold, p 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.
