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J. Moll. Stud. (2000), 66, 61-68
© The Malacological Society of London 2000

INFLUENCE OF THE QUINOLIZIDINE ALKALOID CONTENT OF LUPINUS ALBUS (FABACEAE) ON THE FEEDING CHOICE OF HELIX ASPERSA (GASTROPODA: PULMONATA)

L. CHEVALIER1, C. DESBUQUOIS1, J. PAPINEAU2 and M. CHARRIER1

1 UMR CNRS 6553, Service de Zoologie et Ecophysiologie, Faculté des Sciences, Université de Rennes I, Avenue du Général Leclerc, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France. E-mail: Laure.Chevalier{at}univ-rennes1.fr; 2 INRA, Station d'Amélioration des Plantes Fourragères, 86000 Lusignan, France

To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Adult Helix aspersa snails were maintained individually for one week in plastic cages with 9 living Lupinus albus plants as their only food. Among these 9 plants, 3 chemotypes bitter, intermediate and sweet which differed in their alkaloid content were equally represented.

Each day, the leaf surface grazed and the number of leaves attacked by the snails were recorded for each chemotype and each snail. A consumption/ attack (C/A) ratio was calculated by dividing the surface grazed (C) by the number of attacks (A). The number of attacks and the grazed area were positively correlated for each chemotype during the whole experiment, and the snails ate similar quantities of lupin each day. After 4 and 6 days of experiment, we noticed a rejection of the bitter chemotype in favor of the intermediate and sweet ones respectively. After the 6th day, the surface grazed per attack was significantly higher on the sweet chemotype than on the bitter plants. We hypothesize that rejection of the bitter chemotype might be related to (i) an alkaloids reaction threshold associated with an increase in the amount of alkaloids in the wounded plants and/or (ii) aversive ingestive conditioning.

(Received ; accepted 16 April 1999)


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