Place：Lecture Hall A401, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

　　Contact: Dr. WANG De-Hua, 010-64807073

　　SUMMARY  Land snails, like all other terrestrial animals, must cope with problem of maintaining water balance. Therefore, their ability to colonise terrestrial habitats is the result of their developing a range of behavioural and physiological adaptations for coping with problems of maintaining water, ionic and thermal balance to ensure their survival under specific microhabitat conditions. This is all the more difficult for land snails which inhabit arid and semi-arid zones, where conditions of high ambient temperature and low humidity prevail. One of these adaptations is their annual cycle of activity and aestivation that correlates with seasonal changes in temperature, humidity and water availability. This presentation summarizes some 20 years of research on resistance to desiccation and heat inca. 25% of the Israeli land snail fauna. In general, resistance to heat and aridity is correlated with distribution patterns and with abiotic environmental variation. The study comprised of intra-generic and intra-specific comparisons and micro-habitat and phylogeny-related differences. We also tested the effects of body size, ontogeny and the physiological set-points of the water regulatory mechanisms. Lately, we study the molecular mechanisms functioning under stress conditions and reflected in the pattern of expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs).

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