FORAGING BEHAVIOUR OF TERRESTRIAL GASTROPODS: INTEGRATING FIELD AND LABORATORY STUDIES

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Abstract
The foraging range of adult snails, Helix aspersa, has been studied using radio-transmitters. Snails did not return to an exact roost site after foraging, but often remained in the food patch, or returned only to the general roost area. Time lapse video films of the slug Deroceras reticulatum made under infra-red lighting in arenas were analysed for tracklengths and degree of turning, in order to simulate slug movements in an unbounded situation. The results suggest that many food items are found by random encounter. Slugs usually ate the first food item found, but often ignored food items encountered later. If food was scarce, the slugs fed almost every time. Electronic recordings of bites on a wheat flour pellet over 24 hours show that feeding is most intense in the first two and a half hours from starting to feed, and later meals are both shorter and less regular. Starved slugs differed from fed slugs principally by taking a second meal shortly after the first. When given a choice of a more preferred food (maize pellets) and a less preferred food (pea pellets) in different ratios, the slugs appeared to encounter pellets at random, but they fed more from the preferred pellets unless the ratio was 1 maize: 7 pea. Starved slugs ate twice as much as fed ones.

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