# name
Temporal differences in snail diversity responses to wildfires and salvage logging

# metadata.dc.description.abstract[].value
Species tend to peak in abundance at different times after fires. Over time, species richness (α) and landscape heterogeneity are prone to increase and lead to greater between-site diversity (β). However, post-fire salvage logging can reduce β-diversity, both directly and through its influence on succession. The as-yet understudied response of land snails to long-term habitat modification after wildfires and forest management is important for decision-making in forest restoration and conservation. We expected to detect differences in land snails and diversity in both the short and long term and between treatments in a natural park in the Mediterranean Basin. However, our results showed that post-fire management was a non-significant variable for snail community diversity, the exception being open-habitat endemic species. Plant succession and leaf litter cover were the main variables that shaped snail diversity and abundance over time after fires. Eighteen years after a fire, the land snail diversity had improved and the community composition had diversified, irrespective of the post-fire treatment, but threatened species disappeared and the total snail numbers had notably declined. To preserve threatened open-habitat species, prescribed fires and livestock grazing are recommended in combination with mature areas that can act as shelters where forest snails can recover from future disturbances.

# metadata.dc.relation.ispartof[].value
Environmental Conservation, 2023, vol. 50, num.1, p. 40-49

# metadata.dc.rights[].value
cc-by (c) Puig-Gironès, Roger et al., 2023

# metadata.dc.source[].value
Articles publicats en revistes (Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals)

# metadata.dc.title[].value
Temporal differences in snail diversity responses to wildfires and salvage logging