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Journal Molluscan Studies Advance Access published online on September 19, 2007
Journal of Molluscan Studies, doi:10.1093/mollus/eym027
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Malacological Society of London, all rights reserved

A WATER-BORNE SEX PHEROMONE AND TRAIL FOLLOWING IN THE APPLE SNAIL, POMACEA CANALICULATA

Mari Takeichi1, Yoshio Hirai2 and Yoichi Yusa1,

1Faculty of Science, Nara Women's University, Kitauoya-nishi, Nara 630-8506, Japan; and 2Sena 7-chome 12-11, Shizuoka 420-0911, Japan

Correspondence: Y. Yusa; e-mail: yusa{at}cc.nara-wu.ac.jp


  Abstract

We investigated whether individuals of the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata were attracted by conspecifics or follow mucus trails of other individuals. The snails' behaviour was studied by a series of choice experiments in a T-maze and in Petri dishes. Both males and females chose the side with a snail of the opposite sex significantly more frequently than the control side without a snail. Males were attracted by water conditioned with females more frequently than unconditioned water, whereas females did not show a preference for male-conditioned water. Moreover, juveniles were not attracted by water conditioned with a male, a female and a juvenile. These data indicate that males were attracted by female odour, which contains one or more water-borne sex pheromones. In addition, both males and females follow mucus trails of snails of the opposite sex. Since females also followed trails of females, the function of trail following is not necessarily related to reproduction. In these experiments P. canaliculata did not distinguish the direction of the trail.

(Received 10 March 2007; accepted 12 July 2007)


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