snail – BioQuakes

George the Snail

On January 1^st, while we were all blissfully celebrating the transition from 2018 to 2019, the last land snail of the species Achatinella apexfluva, which had thrived for many years on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, had gone extinct.

The name of the snail was George. It was given to him by researchers so that he may be remembered and not simply become an extinct species left unknown to most. Researcher Michael Hadfield notes “You anthropomorphize it [i.e. George the snail] and people pay attention.” More importantly, though, is George’s story. He was “…born in the early 2000’s to parents that had been captured in the mountains [by scientists] in an effort to protect them from predators.” Then, there was a sudden mass extinction event. What researchers believe to be some form of a pathogen annihilated the remains of George’s already endangered species. George was the lone survivor of this unfortunate phenomena.

George’s species is not the only one to face extinction on the Hawaiian Islands. “At one point there were more than 750 species of land snails identified…” George’s species, however, was the first. Unfortunately, Dr. Sischo, who directs the state-run Snail Extinction Prevention Program, mentions that estimates say that “more than half of those species are already extinct.” There were other factors, other than the elusive pathogen, that have afflicted the land snails over a much longer period of time: “…invasive predators like rats and wolfsnail, which eats other snials. They also face habitat destruction and the effects of climate change; drier conditions have reduced the inhabitable land on the islands,” Dr. Sischo says.

In 2017, researchers removed a two-millimeter section of his foot and have preserved it in a “deep-freeze container” according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources. “The hope is that someday soon, scientists will develop the technology to clone a snail.”

Seychelles,

A certain purplish-blue banded snail was rediscovered after initially deemed extinct by the general scientific community, stirring up the minds of the many who continue to debate the effects of climate change and what living things directly suffer its consequences. Firstly declared extinct by a highly regarded Seychelles mollusk expert, Dr. Justin Gerlach, the snail’s reclassification has caused backlash in the scientific community. With such a confident course of action in not only the declaration of extinction, but also the citing climate change as the primary reason, it is understandable and necessary that scientists should view this case with scrutiny and care. Gerlach attributed an insufficient amount of rainfall to the snail’s extinction, which he suggested was in direct association with climate change. Not alone, other scientists also backed his claims, agreeing that climate change caused immediate ramifications for this banded snail.

However, with the rediscovery of this snail, it is now essential not to overestimate the weight of climate change when discussing extinction and habitat loss, although we know climate change is a very real and growing concern. According to the UN’s panel on climate change there are more than a few other factors that can impact a species that can also sit in the shadow of climate change in inappropriate manners. It is irresponsible to use climate change as a scapegoat in certain situations, as it can prove to be detrimental in the future when in hindsight it may not have been the primary causation of a species decline. The UN panel provides us with data that reinforces the notion that mollusks suffer from extinction based on factors like pollution or invasive species. As Bjorm Lomberg suggests “climate change is a real problem, but the way it is increasingly blocking sensible thinking is depressing.”

As for the future, the rediscovery of this species can hopefully serve as an example of the disillusionment that can arise from a hyped phenomenon. Yes, climate change is one great problem, but it is one of many, and we must hold ourselves accountable to where our conclusions derive from. The only current certainty is that we have to do a better job at limiting these debilitating factors.

BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: snail

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