CHAPTER I 

 BIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON THE CITRUS TREE SNAIL 



Section 1. Seasonal Fluctua-tions of Snails in Groves 



Introduction 



No information is available on D^. dormani distribution on citrus, 

 therefore studies were conducted to determine the distribution of D. 

 dormani within a citrus grove in Florida's northern citrus growing re- 

 gion from 1976-77. 

 Materials and Methods 



A map of the grove was made indicating the position of each tree 

 in the grove. During the winter months the snail colonies migrate to 

 the dead wood and protected areas of the trees. Burlap feed sacs, one 

 per tree, were placed in the lowest fork of the tree trunks, during the 

 summer months, to create artificial snail harborages for the hibernating 

 snails. The snails then could move under these sacs during the winter 

 for protection. 



On March 18, 1976, and April 7, 1977, while in hibernation, the 

 snail colonies were examined on each tree. Population and percent mor- 

 tality counts were made under each burlap sac and within dead wood. 

 The number of viable snails and total shell counts were recorded as V/T, 

 that is those viable (V) out of the total (T) shell count. 

 Results and Discussion 



The snail population recorded in 1976 showed that this grove con- 

 sisted of a pocket of snail trees surrounded by nonsnail trees (Table 1). 



