Title: Terrestrial mollusk surveys in Glacier National Park during 2008, including an illustrated key to all documented species
Description: An area within Montana lacking recent land snail surveys is Glacier National Park.  No study of the terrestrial mollusk fauna has been undertaken in the park since the production of a mollusk checklist in the mid 1960's, and only one other study of the terrestrial mollusk fauna of the park was conducted prior to the production of the 1967 checklist: a brief survey in August 1916.  Montana Natural Heritage Program (MTNHP) surveys on Forest Service lands during 2005-2007 indicated that several SOC taxa, none of which are on the 1967 checklist, were likely to occur within the boundaries of the park, and underscored the need for additional inventory to approach completeness of the Glacier National Park checklist.  In addition, significant land cover changes (wildfire in particular) have occurred in Glacier National Park since the production of the 1967 checklist, and current status of all terrestrial mollusk species in response to this change is unknown.  The 1967 checklist included 14 species of terrestrial mollusks for Glacier National Park.  Of these, three species found in 1919 had not been documented since then, but three species not reported in 1916 had been added, including the first non-native species, the exotic Giant Garden Slug (Limax maximus).MTNHP land snail surveys were conducted during 13-18 October 2008, all in the western half of the park.  The 20 site surveys resulted in detection of 369 individuals of 18 species.  Six species were new to the park checklist: the snails Glossy Pillar (Cochlicopa lubrica) and Lovely Vallonia (Vallonia pulchella), and the slugs Brown-banded Arion (Arion circumscriptus), Dusky Arion (A. subfuscus), Meadow Slug (Derocerus laeve), and Reticulate Taildropper (Prophysaon andersoni).  An additional slug species previously undocumented in the park (Chocolate Arion, A. rufus) was seen and described in 2008 by park personnel in the Head-quarters Area and could only be this species.  Two species on the 1967 checklist were not detected in 2008: Shiny Tightcoil (Pristiloma wascoense) and Cross Vertigo (Vertigo modesta).  The checklist for land mollusks documented in Glacier National Park now includes 21 species, an expansion of 50% over the 1967 checklist.  The 2008 checklist includes 15 land snail species (one non-native) and six slug species (four non-native).  Four of the seven species new to the checklist in 2008 are exotics (non-natives), and one (Reticulate Taildropper) is a Montana Animal Species of Concern.  Survey results helped fill gaps in documented distributions for several taxa, and contributed to the data sets used for production of new state-wide Predicted Distribution Models that are now under development.  Survey results have been entered into the Montana Natural Heritage Program's Animal Point Observation Database.   General data summaries for individual species can be seen on the Montana Field Guide and details on the survey locations and species detected can be found on the Montana Heritage Program's Tracker application; links to both can be found in the upper center of the Montana Heritage Program's homepage at http://mtnhp.org/
Subjects: Surveys, Slugs (Mollusks), Monitoring, Mollusks, Wildlife monitoring, Snails
Places: Montana, Glacier National Park, Glacier National Park (Mont.)