The land snail fauna of the Gesäuse National Park. Ecology of alpine land gastropods, with special attention to endemic species. (Gastropoda, Mollusca)

The fauna of the Gesäuse is extremely rich in land snails, especially in endemic species. Despite a comparatively good historical data from Walter Klemm’s 1973 monographic work on the land snail fauna of Austria, few up-to-date data were available from the area prior to the beginning of the present mapping work. These were raised above all by the working group Alpine Landschnecken led by Dr. Helmut Sattmann at the Natural History Museum Vienna. The high importance of gastropods for end-mitean research and conservation was the main reason for the current comprehensive treatment of the land snail fauna of the Gesäuse National Park. In addition to qualitative mappings in all parts of the landscape, altitude levels and habitat types (semi)quantitative collections were carried out by hand trapping and soil sieve in (sub-)alpine rock and debris biotopes as well as lawn biotopes. All available historical data and unpublished collections of ÖKOTEAM were also evaluated. On the one hand, this work aims at a summary of the species inventory of the Gesäuse National Park and, on the other hand, a comprehensive study of subalpine and alpine terrestrial slugs with regard to their local occurrences, altitude distribution and habitat selection.