The diversity and abundance of terrestrial snails in yankari game reserve, bauchi state, Nigeria

Abstract

Land snails represent one of the most important groups of invertebrates in terrestrial ecosystems; this study was aimed at determining the distribution and abundance of land snails in Yankari Game Reserve Bauchi State, Nigeria. Land snails were investigated in Yankari using a combination of direct search and litter sieving techniques. 10 plots were sampled randomly within an area of 100m × 100m so as to have a good spread of each site. Soil sample were collected within each of the plots and analyzed for soil pH, total nitrogen, organic carbon, calcium and moisture content. A total of 103 specimens comprising of six species belonging to four molluscan families were collected from ten plots in Yankari Game Reserve. This showed that the molluscs were moderately diverse. The family, Achatinidae dominated the fauna in Yankari Game Reserve. This study has revealed that the land fauna in Yankari are moderately diverse with low densities. The result indicates that not all the sampling areas of the reserves had much species; it is therefore presumed that there may be richer areas of land snails which were not sampled in both sites.