Morphological adaptation of P. canaliculata shell to the different ecosystems

Introduction

The physiological, morphological, and behavioral adaptation of Pomacea canaliculata to various environmental conditions made them thrive and be one of the major pests in freshwater wetlands particularly affecting ricefields and other economically important agricultural areas. They had been known for their adaptive plasticity (Estebenet & Martin, 2002) and highly generalist and voracious macrophytophagous feeding nature (Morrison, et al., 2016).

P. canaliculata, or commonly known as golden apple snail, is one of the freshwater snails that underwent series of adaptations to thrive in any given freshwater environment. Hence, the golden apple snail can tolerate harsh environmental conditions such as low levels of salinity, lower temperature (Seuffert, et al., 2013), low pH levels, metal and pollutant contamination, parasite infestations, period of drought (Silverwood, 2011), and low food availability (Tamburi & Martin, 2016). However, its survival in these adverse environmental conditions is highly dependent on the important physiological, morphological, and behavioral adaptations (Chukwuka, et al., 2014) of these snails to their environment. Furthermore, according to Relyea (2002), as cited by Madjos, et al., in 2015 that P. canaliculata can respond to the changes in the environment by producing alternative phenotypes as an adaptive strategy. 

Consequently, there had been different functional parts of the snails that played an important factor in their survival especially in maintaining their homeostasis. One of those parts is the shell. Salient features of the snails' shells that ensured the snails' survival against adverse environmental conditions, predator cues, and various anthropogenic-related activities were: shell periostracum, shell chirality, shell color, shell shape, shell size and weight, and operculum shape and weight.

However, these characteristics could also be a potential target for control measures. A better understanding of the important characteristics of the species that helped them survive various environmental stresses should be understood by people implementing management and control programs. Henceforth, this paper was conducted to provide basic information on the adaptation of the snails based on the characteristics of their shells, so that proper management and control measures can be crafted to make them better suited in the area. The paper looked into three different ecosystems which have important economic value where the presence and manifestation of golden apple snails were seen to be of great concern.